New Towns, Cheerleaders, and Ill-Advised Crushes
by BonitaBreezy
Summary: Clint Barton is dubious at best about living in a new town after social services tracks him down and takes him away from his life Carson's Carnival of Travelling Wonders, but after he joins the cheerleading squad and lays eyes on Phil Coulson, he thinks he might just be able to make it work. High school au
1. Chapter 1

Clint should have known as soon as he stepped foot in the town of Midgard, New York that he was in way over his head.

The whole place had that shiny new feel to it, like everyone there was classy and rich and modern. It was everything Clint wasn't. Having spent the better part of his life in the Midwest with a traveling circus, Clint was definitely not the type of person that Midgard's big houses and perfectly mowed green lawns hosted.

Though the wealth of the town was obvious, Clint had been a bit preoccupied with being located by social services and snatched away from his life at Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders to really notice. He'd spent the last month moving from house to house while they tried to find a permanent foster home that would take a sixteen year old carnie.

They'd finally placed him in Midgard with the principal of the local high school, and Clint had been so overwhelmed by the sheer inertia of his life (not to mention his new large and very intimidating one-eyed foster father) that he hadn't taken the time to get his bearings and figure out exactly what kind of place he was in.

Clint hadn't realized how much he stuck out until he walked through the front doors of Shield Academy on his first day (in-step with the principal no less) and realized that all of the other students reeked of money. It was obvious in the way that it could only be to someone who didn't belong.

The girls all sported fleece North Face jackets and Ugg boots that probably cost more than all the clothes Clint owned put together, along with sparkly studded earrings that were probably real diamonds. The guys had expensive name-brand tennis shoes and polo shirts and those big Beats headphones that cost more than any pair of headphones should ever cost. Everyone was wearing name brands and designers and fancy jeans that were made to look like they were old and torn but were obviously new and pricey.

In his purple t-shirt (3 for $10 at Walmart!) and old jeans with grass and dirt stains from days spent striking the Big Top and taking care of the animals, Clint was very aware that he looked like exactly what he was: poor white trash. He was suddenly extremely aware of the hole in the side of his left shoe where the upper canvas part was breaking away from the sole, and he hated himself for caring.

"Come on, your class schedule and locker number should be in my office." Nick's eye was narrowed as he looked at Clint, like he could see exactly what thoughts were rushing through his brain. Strangely, Clint felt chastised by that look, and he fisted his fingers in the too-long sleeves of the ratty leather jacket that he'd stolen from a Salvation Army in Nebraska and straightened his shoulders.

If they wanted to judge him, they could go ahead. Clint was the World's Greatest Marksman, and he'd lived a harder life than any of them would ever experience. He didn't need their approval. Despite his determination to not care though, Clint couldn't help but wish that he'd worn his other pair of jeans, the ones without the hole by the back pocket.

The school was huge and fancy, all tile and big windows. The front lobby was absolutely huge. There was a huge and impressive looking grand staircase on one side of it that lead up to the second floor, which was encased by large frosted windows. Clint had never actually been to high school before, but he was pretty sure that most of them weren't this fancy-looking.

Nick led him across the huge lobby, past an abundance of comfy-looking couches in the center and towards the office set up in the corner. It was another example proving that the architect really liked windows, because the whole front wall was made of glass, including the doors.

Nick pushed through them and past the reception desk like he owned the place, which Clint guessed he kind of did, being the principal and all. He received a chorus of good mornings, but only waved hello in response, ushering Clint back towards his office, which had a hard-wood door with a shiny plaque on it that read "Nicholas Fury: Principal". There was a matching door right next to it with another plaque that said "Maria Hill: Vice Principal". That door was propped open and Clint could see a beautiful dark-haired woman sitting at the desk with a file folder propped in front of her.

"Stop making eyes at Ms Hill, she's too old for you," Nick said, and Clint jumped like he'd been zapped. He made a face, hoping that it indicated just how much he had _not_ been making eyes, _thank you,_ and followed Nick into his office. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't small either. It looked pretty typical, as far as Clint knew what offices were supposed to look like. There was a big desk with a computer on it and two chairs sitting in front of it. One corner held a mini fridge with a potted cactus on top of it, and the other held three filing cabinets. There weren't any personal touches in the office as far as Clint could tell, but he figured that was Nick's business. Obviously he didn't have any kids, because Clint had been staying in his house for a week and had found no evidence that anyone else lived there at all. If he'd ever been married, there was no hint of that either, and Clint didn't think it was his place to ask.

Nick picked up a few of the papers from his desk and handed them over to Clint. One was a class schedule, lined up neatly in columns of A through D rather than by the days of the week. The other was a map of the school, which was much bigger than Clint had originally thought. He didn't have a homeroom, but his first period class was Spanish 1.

Nick had confessed that they hadn't really known what to do with him due to his lack of formal education, but the tests he'd taken at Nick's kitchen table had revealed that, despite the fact that he hadn't been to school since he was twelve, he wasn't stupid. He was average in English and history and pretty bad at math, but apparently everyone was pretty bad in math, because they'd decided to just stick him in with his own age group and hope for the best.

"Why aren't there any days on this?" Clint asked, looking at the schedule dubiously. He was pleased to see that there was a study hall for his last period and a gym class right before lunch.

"We use a block system here, but it's only applicable to some classes. There's a big sign out in the lobby that will have the letter for the day up in it, and that's how your schedule goes," Nick explained. He took the paper from Clint and pointed to one of the boxes in the 'A' column. "See? On A and C days, you have Drawing and Painting second period, but on B and D days, you have choir."

"Right," Clint continued to stare at the paper. "And why am I signed up for Drawing and Painting and choir when I know nothing about those things?"

"The school board wants students to be well-rounded, so you have to take one art credit and one music credit," Nick looked at him and raised an eyebrow, like he was expecting Clint to challenge him. When he said nothing, Nick continued. "You also have to take health and gym so those are on there too. I thought you'd prefer singing to learning an instrument."

"Yeah," Clint said quickly. "Yeah, definitely."

"Okay, good." Nick settled into his big comfy-looking chair and started writing in a spiral bound day planner. "I'm writing you a pass for your teacher. You're late, but for today it will be okay. I'd go with you, but I'm sure that's not the impression you want to make with your peers."

Clint thought about Nick, the principal, leading him into the classroom like a clingy mom on her kid's first day of kindergarten and shook his head.

"Yeah, no, I got it. Thanks."

"You're welcome. And I loaded some credit on your account, so you'll be able to get lunch. Just let me know when you run out and I'll load some more."

"Okay, thanks!" Clint said, and retreated out of the room quickly, his schedule and passbook in hand. The idea of going to his new class was making him anxious, but he'd never been one to back down from a challenge. If he was nervous, it was better to just get it over with.

It took him almost five minutes to figure out where his class was and then walk there, and by the time he got there, the teacher was writing something on the blackboard. He took a deep breath and tugged at the straps of the new backpack Nick had bought (it was purple, and Clint kind of loved it).

As soon as he pushed open the door, every head in the room swiveled over to look at him. Clint swallowed harshly and walked inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. He held out the spiral-bound book that Nick had given him, open to the 'pass' page, and said, "I'm new."

_"__Ah, sí, bienvenido! Como te llama?" _ the teacher, a tall dark-haired woman, said, and Clint stared at her blankly, hoping he didn't look as panicked as he felt. Was he supposed to already know how to speak Spanish?

"Ah, you've never taken Spanish before, have you? Who can tell our new friend what I just said?" the teacher directed the question towards the class, and Clint tried not to visibly wince at the phrase "our new friend".

Someone dutifully answered the question, and Clint found out that he'd been welcomed and asked for his name. The teacher interrupted him before he could even start to tell her.

"Actually, why don't you stand up here and tell the class about yourself?" she said, looking at him expectantly. Clint really wished he could just take a seat and put his head down on the desk forever, but she didn't look like she was going to budge.

"What should I say?" he asked uncertainly.

"Tell us your name, your age, where you're from!" she prompted, smiling sunnily at him.

Clint dutifully moved to stand in front of the class, clenching and unclenching his fingers against the straps of his bag. He knew how to put on a show and work a crowd, but it was different here than it had been at the circus, and he found that he didn't like being the center of attention when he didn't have an act to perform.

"Um, I'm Clint Barton. I'm sixteen. I'm from Iowa." He listed off those facts like he was reading them from a list, hoping that it would be enough to get the teacher to let him sit down.

"Oooh, Iowa, that's interesting!" the teacher lied. "Did you take a language at your school there?"

"Uh, no," Clint said. "I didn't actually go to school there? I was part of a traveling circus." He hoped that revealing his unorthodox childhood would get her to stop asking him questions, and it seemed to work.

"Oh!" she blinked at him a few times, like she was trying to tell if he was joking, and then clasped her hands together in front of her. "Well that's...well that is unusual. Why don't you take a seat, Clint? I'm _Señora_ Johnson, welcome to Shield."

"Thanks," Clint muttered, and he made a break for his seat. All the students were whispering to each other, no doubt very interested in discussing the circus freak that had been dropped right into the middle of their undoubtedly boring lives. Clint could feel them staring at him, but he found the first empty seat he could and stared determinedly at the desktop for the rest of the period.

He'd been one of the first people out the door when the bell rang, determined to dodge any more questions from the teacher, but he was still late to his second period art class. As it turned out, the school was even bigger than he'd originally given it credit for, and he couldn't find the art room's number on the map that Nick had given him. Eventually one of the security guards had stopped him and asked to see a pass, and he'd had to admit that he was new and extremely lost. The guard took pity on him and guided him to a hallway, and then into a smaller hallway behind the cafeteria, and then through a door where an even smaller hallway was hiding, wrapped around an outdoor courtyard. He'd never seen anything quite so unnecessary before, and he felt much better about having gotten lost. It was ridiculous to expect anyone to be able to find the right hall unless they'd been there before.

The teacher was showing them how to draw something or other on the board when he walked in, and she hardly spared him a glance other than to confirm that he was Clint Barton and then wave at him to take a seat. There was only one seat open, next to a huge blonde guy who gave off a very wholesome vibe. Clint sat and prepared himself for another forty minutes of brain-numbing boredom. Thankfully, the teacher stopped talking after another ten minutes and left them to work on their own art projects.

"Steve, would mind helping our new student?" she asked. "I've got to grade the tests for the next class." Her question wasn't really a question, but Clint's desk mate, Steve, just sent her a dazzling smile and nodded.

"Of course, Mrs. P. No problem." She rushed off to her desk without thanking him and popped in some earbuds to drown out the sounds of the class.

"Wow," Clint said. "She seems involved."

"Oh yeah," Steve answered, rolling his eyes good naturedly. "She's a little weird, but she's a great artist. I've learned a lot from her. I'm Steve, by the way."

Clint responded with his own name, shaking the hand that Steve offered, even though he was sure that most high school students didn't shake hands like businessmen. Still, Steve seemed earnest and completely unironic about it, so it was a little less weird than he had expected. Steve seemed like he might be one of those genuinely nice people that Clint had only ever read about in books.

He was also a really good looking guy, in a very classic sense. He was big and broad and muscled in all the right places with hair the color of straw and big blue eyes. If Clint had been in to that All-American paragon of virtue look, he might have already started flirting, but something about Steve kind of gave him the impression of an extremely loyal and happy labrador, and he knew there was no way Clint and all his baggage would ever fit properly with him, so he didn't bother.

"So. We're drawing animals?" Clint asked, looking at the drawings of dogs and birds and a school of fish that had been drawn on the board during the teacher's explanation.

"Not exactly," Steve huffed a laugh. "The point is to draw a self portrait, but to imbue your image with that of an animal that represents you. For example…" Steve trailed off as he quickly began scratching his pencil in the margin of his notebook. After a minute or two, there was a rough sketch of a man with several beady black spider eyes and pincers around his mouth. Despite the creepy arachnid looks to him, though, he still had a human, shaped head and nose, as well as a distinctive goatee stretched around his scary spider mouth. Steve was quickly adding hair that spiked up in the front to his sketch.

"So...I'm just supposed to choose an animal that I think represents me and draw me looking like that animal? Because I have never drawn a thing in my life," Clint said, doodling a stick figure next to Steve's amazing looking sketch as if to prove a point.

"Hmm, yeah," Steve said, sounding concerned. "Well, it's the final project, so you've still got two months to figure out what you're going to do and how to do it. I guess you wouldn't have any of the fundamentals since you missed the first half of the class. But I can tutor you, if you want!"

"Oh, um...yeah, that would be cool." Clint was almost startled into agreeing to it. He'd never expected Steve to offer up his free time to help him out. But Steve seemed like a good guy, and way nicer than his fancy prissy school would suggest. Maybe he could actually make a friend.

"Awesome," Steve said. "It'll have to be a free period, though, because I've got basketball practice after school every day." He made a face to express what he thought of that, but he went right back to grinning afterwards, so Clint figured he actually enjoyed playing basketball.

"I've got a free period ninth," Clint suggested, studying the slightly crumpled schedule he'd dug out of his pocket.

"I've got on every other day ninth," Steve told him brightly.

"I mean," Clint said quickly, smoothing his paper on the desktop a bit nervously. "I'm probably going to need a ton of tutoring in other classes too, so we'll have to work around that. But I am clearly going to need all the help I can get with this." He added a stick figure cat with pointy ears and a curvy tail next to his stick figure man to emphasize his point.

"Well, no worries. Drawing isn't easy, but if you practice enough you can get really good at it. And for an art credit, all you need is to be kind of okay at it. We'll get you there!"

"Thanks," Clint said, suddenly feeling less overwhelmed. He'd still need to catch up in all his other classes and get used to being in school again after five years of circus life, but there was one area where he didn't have to do it by himself, and that felt like a blessing.

"Hey, no problem," Steve said, waving his words away with a sweep of his hand. "I remember when I was new here. It was pretty overwhelming for me, because my family doesn't make six figures like everyone else's parents in this district. I mean, they're mostly nice people, but it was intimidating, especially because I grew up in Brooklyn. I wasn't used to the small town feel that Midgard has, you know?"

"Yeah, kind of," Clint admitted. "I definitely know about the intimidation. I'm, uh, being fostered with Principal Fury." He waited for a look of pity in Steve's eyes, but all he got was a flash of a sad frown and a shrug of shoulders.

"Yeah, my parents are gone, too," Steve offered. "I live with my grandma. And Principal Fury is a good guy. A little intimidating sometimes. But good."

"Yeah," Clint agreed. "I've noticed. I mean, he gave me lunch money and bought me school stuff from his own bank account. Who does that?"

"Parents, I guess," Steve said, giving Clint an odd look, and Clint knew that he didn't really get it.

Steve might not be living with his parents anymore, whether they were dead or just deadbeats, but he was still with family. Clint, however, knew how the orphanage/foster experience worked. Fosterers took in kids and got a stipend for it, and then they spent as little of it as possible on the kids and kept the rest for themselves. Nick, apparently, hadn't gotten the memo.

"Yeah, I guess," he responded skeptically. He fell quiet, watching as Steve started working on a rough sketch for his own portrait. Apparently he'd decided on wolf elements, as he'd pulled up a google image search of wolves on his phone and kept scrolling through the results and drawing body parts with animalistic aspects.

They were pretty quiet for the rest of the class, Steve focusing on his work and Clint watching because he had nothing better to do. Right before the bell rang, though, Steve spoke up suddenly.

"Hey, when's your lunch?" Clint had to look it up, but discovered that his lunch was during fifth period, the same as Steve's.

"Listen," Steve said as he put away his notebook. "Why don't you have lunch with me, you can meet my friends."

"Yeah, okay," Clint said, feeling suddenly nervous again. He wasn't great with people.

"Awesome. Just get lunch and then come to the platform at the end of the cafeteria, we'll be up there. I'll save you a seat!" That last bit was called over his shoulder, because the bell had rung and he was rushing off to whatever his next class was. Clint watched him go, regretting that he hadn't asked for directions to his own next class and worrying about what Steve's friends would think of him.

Third period was American history, which was kind of interesting because it was pretty much just the teacher telling stories. Fourth period, Clint had gym, and it was excellent. For one, everyone was wearing gym clothes, and Clint's were brand new, so he felt a bit less conspicuous. More importantly, there were options. Shield had two gyms, one of which was so large that it was divided in two by a heavy curtain during classes, as well as a weight room, an indoor swimming pool, and ten gym coaches in all. During gym periods, whichever coaches had a class would give announce what activites they had planned for the day, and the students from those classes could decide what activity to do, or they could choose to walk around the track that was suspended above the big gym.

Clint had never been particularly big on water, and he didn't have a swimsuit anyway, so he gave the pool a miss. He considered playing a game of basketball, but by the time he'd made his decision he could see that ten guys had already wandered over to that coach and he didn't want to throw off the team balance. His remaining options were pickleball in the small gym, walking the track, or a tumbling unit.

Walking in circles by himself was sure to be boring, and he didn't even know what pickleball was, so he wandered over to the six girls that were laying out squishy blue mats on the gym floor. He'd long since passed simple tumbling, but he thought it would feel good to have that stretch in his muscles again after a few weeks of going without. He grabbed a stack of two from the corner and brought them over, trying to ignore the strange looks he was receiving from some of the girls.

"Where should I put these?" he asked, realizing a bit late that he sounded gruff and sullen.

"Um...just lay them out the long way by those ones, I guess," the closest girl to him, a curly-haired brunette, said. He arranged the mats as instructed, wondering why they would need a runway for a tumbling unit.

"I'm sorry, are you planning on staying here?" the girl asked. Clint tried not to let her see his shoulders stiffen.

"I was, yeah. Is that a problem?" he asked.

"Darcy!" one of the other girls admonished. "You're being super rude."

Darcy's mouth dropped open suddenly, and then she was waving her hands in the air wildly front of her. "Oh jeez, no, I didn't mean to be all 'grr mean girl'! It's just that everyone knows the 'tumbling unit' is Coach Hand's excuse to let the cheerleaders practice during gym class so I was kind of confused? Jeez, I'm such a tool, you're totally welcome to stay!"

"Oh," Clint said, scuffing the toe of his brand new Nike against the sleek gym floor. "Sorry, I'm new, I didn't know. But uh, I'm gonna stay. If that's cool."

"Yeah, totally cool!" the blonde piped up, and he could see the way her eyes lingered on his biceps. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Nick for supplying him with gym clothes that included a sleeveless tank.

"I'm Bobbi, by the way," the blonde said, offering him a pretty smile. He smiled back awkwardly.

"Uh, Clint. Barton."

"Oh!" Darcy said suddenly. "You're the circus guy!" Apparently gossip spread fast, even in a school as big as Shield.

"Yeah, that's me," Clint said, wincing slightly.

He wasn't ashamed of having been in the circus. Carson had been good to him, and he'd earned his keep. All the same, he wasn't sure 'circus guy' was what he wanted to be known as. Although maybe he should be happy that he wasn't being called 'circus freak'.

"That's so cool," one of the other girls spoke up from her place stretching out on the mats. She pressed the bottom of her feet together in a butterfly stretch and then leaned forward until her forehead touched the floor. "Did you like, live with tigers and elephants and stuff?"

"Well, we didn't have an elephant," Clint said, thinking of how excited he had been at the idea of riding an elephant and feeding it peanuts when Barney had been trying to convince him to run away from the orphanage. "Too big and expensive. But we did have two lions and a tiger."

"Wow, did you ever touch them?" Skye pulled up from her stretch to look him in the face. She looked fascinated, and Clint was pretty sure she wasn't just making fun of him.

"Well, yeah, all the time. I mean, Priya, the tiger, she was getting pretty old and didn't do shows anymore, but we kept her around because we were all pretty attached and just couldn't put her down even though she wasn't pulling her weight. But she was just like a big housecat, really.

"Simba and Mufasa could get a little rough sometimes, even though they were well-trained, because they were younger. But I mean, I used to sneak into their cages on really cold nights and sleep with them because they put off a lot of heat."

"Wow," the girl breathed. "Weren't you scared?"

To be honest, he had been worried, sometimes, about one of the cats deciding he would make a decent meal, or about them rolling over and squashing him while they slept, but some nights he'd been more cold than afraid.

"Nah," he told her with a grin and a wink. "Those boys were my babies, they loved me. I'm the one who fed them and mucked their cages, after all."

"That is the coolest thing I've ever heard," she breathed. "I've never even been to a circus. My mom says they're full of…" she trailed off suddenly and coughed awkwardly, her face going pink, and Clint bet that her mom didn't have a lot of good to say about circus folk.

"It's okay," he said, shrugging. "I've heard it all before."

She scrunched up her face apologetically, but took the out he gave her. "I'm Skye, by the way."

"Good to meet you."

He plopped down on the mat next to her so that he could stretch out as well. He spent about ten minutes stretching just because it felt good on the muscles he'd been neglecting since the social worker had first taken him from Carson's. He hadn't really realized how much tension had built up in him until he was stretching it all away and his muscles started to feel limber again.

He sighed happily and watched Bobbi do a few back handsprings down the runway. She was good at it, and her final snap down stuck beautifully. He suspected she'd taken some gymnastics in her life, though it had probably not been on hard-packed dirt or in uneven grassy fields taught by a tiny Ukrainian woman and her hulking husband in preparation for learning to perform on the high wire.

But hey, they couldn't all have unusual childhoods.

He kept to more basic tricks, a few back handsprings and standing back tucks, mostly because he didn't want to really work up a sweat and spend the rest of the day smelling like BO. He did tumbles and a few easy flips and told stories about life in the circus until they were dismissed to go change. While he'd enjoyed the period, he was happy that it was over, because that meant lunch was next, and his stomach had started growling half an hour ago.

He should have known the cafeteria would be as huge and overwhelming as everything else, but that didn't mean he wasn't surprised when he actually saw it. The cafeteria was actually _two_ cafeterias separated by a wall and two large double doors. There were seven different food lines, and TVs tuned to different sports stations at various places in the room, though it was so loud none of the commentary could be heard.

He stopped and stared at the lines, which were rapidly getting longer, not sure where even to start. He was saved from making a decision by Bobbi, who apparently had lunch that period as well.

"It's kind of overwhelming, isn't it?" she said, grinning. "Don't worry, it's really easy. The three lines on the left are always the pizza lines, but the pizza is pretty gross unless it's french bread pizza and they only have that every other Friday. The line all the way to the right is always chicken sandwiches, spicy or regular, and those can always be counted on to taste good. And then the other three lines change every day, but what they're serving is listed on the blackboards." Clint followed her closely, aware that he probably looked like a particularly pathetic puppy dog, but not caring enough to deny her help.

"Oooh, it's taco day! Or chicken and dumplings or spaghetti." Bobbi said happily, reading the blackboards. She turned to him rather suddenly, her face serious. "Okay, first thing you need to know. Never get the spaghetti. It's disgusting. Secondly, the chicken and dumplings looks like cat vomit, but it's actually amazing. But taco day and turkey dinner are the best things you will ever find in this school. So always get those if they're available."

She guided him into the quickly filling taco line, pulling him behind her as she went through the motions of picking a carton of milk out of the cooler (she got 2%, he got chocolate) and then towards the lunch ladies.

"Can I have a soft shell please?" she requested, smiling sweetly at the lunch lady. "Ooh, and a peach fruit cup, please? Clint get the peach fruit cup, it's really yummy."

Clint followed her lead, getting his tacos and a peach fruit cup before sliding on down the line towards a condiments bar, where they added lettuce, tomato and cheese to their tacos. The very end of the line was a cooler full of ice cream bars, which they both ignored, and a cash register. Bobbi said a number, the lunch lady punched it in, and Clint felt his stomach drop. Nick had said he'd loaded credit for lunch, but he hadn't said anything about a number.

"Number?" the woman at the register prompted, looking annoyed at the stop in flow of the line.

"Oh, I uh. I didn't know I needed one? I'm new." He clutched the edges of his tray nervously, worried that the lunch lady might take it away from him. He'd gone without meals before, but he'd never been in a situation where it would be quite so humiliating.

"Name?" she said instead, pulling out a thick binder filled with pages of names and numbers.

"Um...Clint Barton?" he offered, hoping that his name was somewhere in there. Apparently it was, because after a minute she punched something into the register and said, "8734. Memorize it. Next!"

Feeling inexplicably like he'd dodged a bullet, Clint followed Bobbi away from the line and towards the far end of the cafeteria. When he saw the raised platform at the end, he remembered that he was supposed to meet Steve, and wondered if there was a polite way to blow off the girl who'd just helped him navigate strange territory.

"Oh, I uh…" Clint started awkwardly. "Well, I kind of told Steve, this guy in my art class, that I'd sit with him and his friends at lunch?"

"Steve Rogers?" Bobbi asked, seemingly not at all bothered by this new information. "Big, blonde, seems like he should have a wagging tail?"

"That would be the one," Clint confirmed.

"Well good, I have lunch at the same table." She grinned at him, like she was letting him in on some great secret, and beckoned at him to keep walking with a tilt of her head.

Clint decided that he liked Bobbi. She seemed like she had a grasp on everything. He wished he could be like that. Most of the time he was floundering, and just kind of made it all up as he went along.

As soon as they were on the steps of the platform, Steve stood and waved at them.

"Clint, hey! I see you met Bobbi!"

"Yeah, we have gym together," Clint offered awkwardly, suddenly aware that everyone at the long table was staring at him. He got a rapid flurry of introductions, but by the time they'd gone through everyone's name, the only person he was absolutely sure of was Bucky and that was because Bucky had a sleek, silver, clearly expensive prosthetic arm and was therefore rather distinctive.

He took a seat between Steve and a guy with the same weird goatee that Steve had drawn on the spider picture earlier, and he promptly dug into his lunch. The way he was tucking in seemed to defer questions, and so the rest of the group just chatted amongst themselves for a while.

"Hey, where's Phil?" Bobbi asked suddenly as Clint was starting on his second taco.

"He grabbed a sandwich and headed right up to the library. He's got a paper due seventh period that he hasn't finished," the beautiful redheaded girl, Nat-something maybe?, answered.

"Oh, damn," Bobbi said, frowning down into her fruit cup. "I wanted to copy his bio homework. I forgot to do it last night. Do you have Mr. Jameson for bio, Natasha?"

"No, I don't. And why didn't you ask him after gym?" Natasha asked, taking a dainty sip from her bottle of water.

"Well, I thought he'd be here at lunch," Bobbi responded, letting out a disappointed huff. "I guess I'll just have to try and do it now."

"You know you'll get kicked off the squad if you don't keep your grades up, right?" Natasha raised an eyebrow and bit a carrot stick in half. Clint could feel the judgment radiating from her from across the table.

"I know, Nat. It's just one piece of homework I forgot. If you'll remember, el capitan, it's_ you _that kept us late last night running that cheer over and over again."

"You'll thank me when we win at Nationals," Natasha said breezily. "Besides, you're still not sticking the landing on that double layout."

"Yeah, yeah," Bobbi grumbled. Clint assumed this was a conversation they had often.

"I could help you with that." He spoke up before he even really knew that he was doing it, and he kind of wished he hadn't when Natasha and Bobbi both turned to stare at him.

"_You _can do a double layout?" Clint was vaguely offended by her tone of voice, so he set his shoulders and glared at her.

"Yeah, I can. And I can do a lot more than that, too."

"Where did you train in gymnastics?" Natasha demanded.

"I have eight years of training under the Zelinskis at Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders," Clint ground out, daring her to laugh.

"Clint was in the circus," Bobbi explained, grinning widely. While she seemed thrilled with the idea of Clint's childhood, Natasha looked unimpressed.

"And you were properly trained?" she demanded.

"Well, damn, I don't know," Clint snapped. "I mean, they considered me good enough to pull tricks on the high wire, but I probably don't match up to a bunch of cheerleaders."

He was very defensive of the Zelinskis. Alyosha had taught him a lot about what it meant to be a man and a good person, and Olena had taught him how to cook and how to sew and how to speak Ukrainian and Russian. They were the closest thing he'd ever had to parents, even though they weren't all that much older than him.

Natasha, rather than snap back, just smiled and tapped her fingernails against the table top.

"Good! You should come to practice tonight and try out. We can always use more guys."

"Yeah, well...wait, what?" Clint felt his anger and annoyance rush out of him, and all he could do was stare. "You want me to try out for the cheerleading squad?"

"Yes. Unless you're too high above us, that is." Natasha was smirking like she'd just won some amazing victory, and Clint wasn't entirely sure that she hadn't. Still, confused as he was, he found himself agreeing to try out.

"Great!" Natasha said. Right after school in the big gym then. We'll see if you can hack it." With that, she stood up and flounced off without an explanation. She probably didn't even have a destination in mind. She probably just wanted to get the last word. He wondered if she was always that irritating.

"I feel like I was set up," Clint said suspiciously, pulling the lid off his fruit cup.

"I feel like that with her all the time," Bucky sighed forlornly. Clint nodded at him in solidarity, and then focused his attention back on his peaches. He was already starting to regret agreeing to try out.

It had been pretty awkward explaining to Nick that he was going to stay after school to try out for cheerleading, if only because Nick looked oddly pleased by the news. Clint wasn't really sure if it was because he thought it meant that Clint was adjusting well, or that he was making friends, or just that he really liked cheerleading, but he wasn't going to question it. He'd been concerned that Nick might be one of those manly-men who would give him trouble about doing something so girly.

Instead, he had nodded and told Clint that he would be staying late to do some work anyway, and that he could come back for a ride home afterward. It was weird, to think of Nick's house as home. Home was the Big Top and the smell of lion fur and an arrow striking a target, exactly where and how Clint wanted it to. Still, he had nodded and headed off toward the locker room to change back into his gym clothes.

When he entered the big gym he saw what he assumed was the basketball team, judging by the rack of basketballs at the edge of the court, running suicides while their coach yelled at them to move faster and be lighter on their feet and all sorts of other commands. It looked like torture, and Clint was glad that he wasn't trying out for basketball. He glanced around in search of the cheerleaders, and after a few seconds of standing there awkwardly, he realized that they were up on the suspended track stretching.

Clint took the stairs up two at a time, and when he came out on top Natasha was waiting for him. He near about jumped out of his skin, and Natasha smiled like she was extremely satisfied with that. He wasn't quite sure what to make of her.

"So, are you ready to show me what you've got, circus boy?" she asked.

"Well, I'd like to stretch first." Clint cocked an eyebrow at her, deciding the best way to converse with Natasha would be to act as sardonic as she did.

"Well, quickly then. We haven't got all day. Only until 3:30, actually." Clint nodded to show he understood and went to stretch while Natasha addressed her squad.

There were twenty people gathered there, including three guys, and they were all in incredible shape. Natasha had mentioned nationals at lunch earlier, so they must have been pretty good at what they did. He was suddenly nervous.

Olena and Alyosha had trained him well, and he knew how to put on a great show, but this was different. This was being judged by people he would have to see every day. This was them getting to decide if he was good enough, and despite his skill, Clint wasn't sure that he was.

He did his best to push the feelings of inadequacy down, and focus on the aspect of putting on a show. He was Hawkeye, a headliner of Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders, and they were just another audience.

Or at least, that was what he was trying to tell himself.

He stretched more than he needed to, buying time to talk himself up, but eventually it would become obvious that he was stalling, so he clasped his hands awkwardly in front of him and looked to Natasha.

"You've never been a cheerleader before, correct?" she asked him, and Clint shook his head. "Well, that's no matter. If you can pull the stunts you can easily be taught the rest. It's a lot of phony smiling and thrusting your arms around, really. So go ahead and show us what you've got."

"Oh," Clint said, surprised. He'd been expecting her to ask him to throw specific tricks. "Um. What do you want to see?" Natasha looked pleased by the question, as if she had been testing him.

"Just show me some tricks. Whatever you want," she said, and presented with even that small instruction, Clint's brain immediately started thinking.

He started off with a triple back handspring tuck, something that was a little more advanced but probably something most of them were capable of, if they were as good as Natasha seemed to think. He let his tricks get slowly more difficult as he went, and after a few minutes he forgot he was being judged. He just lost himself in the movement of his body, falling back into the patterns he'd spent years training his muscles to follow.

He ended with a double back and triple twisting layout, which he knew required a lot of skill and strength to manage on the floor without any sort of trampoline to assist the jump for the twist. He didn't feel bad for showing off, because that's what he was there to do, but when he stuck the landing and saw the look on Natasha's face, he couldn't help but grin.

The squad burst into applause and cheers, and Clint's grinned widened. He bowed to them a few times and blew a few kisses, and then wiped the sweat from his face with the hem of his t-shirt. Darcy wolf-whistled at him, and he winked at her playfully.

"So?" he asked Natasha. "What's the verdict?"

He came across as nonchalant, thankfully, but inside his guts were roiling. He'd managed to forget he was trying out while he was actually performing, but now that he wasn't, all the nerves came back with crushing force. He felt vaguely ill, like he needed to drink some cold water or get some fresh air. Natasha looked thoughtful.

"Are you kidding?" Bobbi exclaimed. "That was amazing! I can't even believe what you just did! Not only the tricks but the stage presence, it was all A-plus!"

"What does everyone else think?" Natasha asked. "Yea or nay?" There was a loud uproar of "yea!" from the rest of the squad, and Clint's grin burst forward again. "I think we have reached a consensus. Welcome to the team, Clint."

There was another cheer and then everyone rushed towards him to shake his hand, pat him on the back, and introduce themselves. It was another flurry of names that Clint didn't really remember, but he supposed he'd have time to later. The celebration only lasted a few minutes before Natasha barked at everyone to work on the personal problem areas that they had discussed while she 'dealt with the newbie.'

She led him around to the other side of the track and they leaned up against the railing. The basketball team had moved on to playing a scrimmage below them, and they looked pretty good, from what Clint could tell.

"There's a bunch of boring paperwork stuff you'll have to have filled out," Natasha told him, handing him a manilla folder filled with papers.

His name was scrawled on the tab, like Natasha had had absolutely no doubts that he would be joining the team, and he found that he liked that idea. Natasha might be rough around the edges, but apparently she believed that he had something valuable to offer them. He liked feeling valuable.

"There's a parental consent form and some stuff you have to fill out in order to receive a uniform. There's also a permission slip for the trip to Nationals in May. They're being held at Disney World this year." Clint felt a bit of a thrill at that. Like every other American child, he'd dreamed of going to Disney World one day. He'd never imagined that he might actually get to go, though. Natasha continued, oblivious to his internal celebration.

"Practices are every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday after school," she said. "And they're almost always in the Big Gym, unless I tell you otherwise. I'll need to get your cell number, by the way. Just put it on your form and I'll hunt it down later. That's all I can think of right now, but I'll let you know if I come up with anything else. Any questions?"

"No," Clint said, shrugging. "All sounds pretty simple to me."

They watched the basketball players for a few seconds. Steve was there, looking big and impressive next to the rest, but Clint found his eye getting caught by someone else. He was average height with mousy brown hair, and he was _really_ cute. He obviously worked hard at his sport, and his body was defined to show it. He wasn't completely jacked or anything, but he was obviously strong and healthy.

He played the game like he was liquid, slipping around people gracefully and quickly, sliding into places and making a basket before the defense had even noticed he was there. He looked competent, powerful, and when he leaned forward with his hands on his knees, his shorts revealed an ass that wouldn't quit. Clint needed to know his name.

"Who is that?" he asked Natasha. "The point guard. Number 16." Natasha smirked at him knowingly, and Clint flushed. How did she seem to know everything?

"That's Phil Coulson," she said, and then let out a loud whoop when Phil made a pretty spectacular three-pointer. "Yeah, go Phil!"

Phil grinned up at her, and Clint felt his heart stop for a second. That grin was _beautiful_. He felt like he was in one of those fairy tales, where two peoples' eyes met from across the room and there was music and magic everywhere.

Except then Phil's eyes actually met his, and he tripped over his teammate's foot and hit the floor hard, cussing loudly. His teammates burst into raucous laughter, and Phil just laughed it off and got back up, but he didn't look back up at them again.

"Well, that was a great first impression," Natasha said dryly. "He's usually pretty graceful. But, fair warning, he's never given any indication that he's interested in guys."

Clint made a disappointed noise before he could stop himself, and Natasha's laughter was deep and clear. "None? Are you sure?" he asked.

"Pretty sure." She shrugged elegantly. "Sorry."

"Yeah, me too," Clint sighed.

"Well, we should probably get back over to the rest of the squad," she said. "There's a lot of work to do in the next four months. Which, by the way, I know you're coming in here kind of late, but I'll still need the money for the trip and your uniform by the end of next week."

Clint felt his good mood die in his chest, but he tried not to let it show when he said, "Money?"

"Yeah," Natasha nodded. "Just that I can't order your uniform or your tickets without it, and that all needs to get squared away as soon as possible. There's all the pricing in there, but the nationals trip will be about a thousand bucks, which will include your room for the four nights, the five day park-hopper, the tournament admission fee and the plane tickets. You'll need extra for food and souvenirs, of course. The uniform will be about $170, because we have to custom order it. And then it's an extra thirty dollars for the team jacket and you'll need to buy a pair of plain white tennis shoes that you are only allowed to wear for cheering. I know it's really soon, but I really do need all that by next Friday, okay?"

"Um. Yeah, sure," Clint said, fighting the feeling of nausea that was building up in his stomach. He couldn't even afford a cheerleading uniform, let alone the trip to nationals. He felt pretty stupid for thinking it would come free. Nothing was ever free, and he'd let all the splendor around him make him forget that.

"I think I'm going to wrap up practice early," Natasha said, looking across to where the rest of the cheerleaders were mostly standing around giggling with each other. "I just don't think today will be very productive. But we'll be here same time on Wednesday, okay? Don't be late."

"You got it," Clint said numbly, even though he knew that he wouldn't be joining the cheerleading squad after all.

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, bye."

Clint rushed from the gym like the devil was behind him, desperate to get in and out of the locker room before he had to talk to any of his would-have-been teammates. He got changed in two minutes flat, and he was exiting the locker room before the rest of the squad had even left the gym. Nick was typing something on his computer when Clint entered his office and sat in the chair placed in front of his desk.

"Hey, how did it go?" he asked after he finished typing a sentence. He looked at Clint expectantly, and Clint felt his gut twist.

"I didn't make it," he lied.

"Oh. Well, that's too bad," Nick said, frowning. "But there are plenty of other clubs you can join, or sports you can play, if you'd like to. Don't give up just yet."

"Yeah," Clint agreed quietly, and settled in to wait until Nick was done with whatever he was doing so they could leave. It was another half hour of Clint staring at his hands and overthinking everything before Nick powered down his computer and they headed back to his house. When they got there, Clint went straight up to the bedroom he was staying in, threw himself down on the bed, and tried to forget about how unfair life was.

Clint's second day at Shield Academy sucked. Apparently his teachers had gotten together in some sort of horrible conspiracy and decided to test him on his general knowledge, even though he'd already taken tests for general knowledge the week before.  
>Apparently, these ones were "concentrated specifically" for the classes he was taking. He'd ended up disappointing pretty much everyone, and had been promised tutors for Spanish, math, english, and biology to "catch him up". Clint knew that was code for "teach the stupid carnie all the things he should have known when he was ten".<p>

He had also been given extra homework for history class, which was basically to read a specially provided text book and write a page summary for each chapter, which really sucked considering that he had to do the same thing for the regular class textbook. Clint was a slow reader, and between that, school, his teacher-assigned tutoring, and his tutoring with Steve, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to have time for anything like getting a job or sleeping.

He hadn't even had gym class to take his mind off everything, and instead had to sit through a mind-numbing lecture on how abstinence was the only possible life choice unless he wanted his cock to fall off (he did not) or to get a girl pregnant (not super likely). He would have never believed that someone could make talking about sex so boring, but boring it absolutely was.

Lunch had been a damn blessing, even though Phil Coulson, for some reason, adamantly avoided looking at him and he felt guilty every time he looked at Natasha or Bobbi. Besides that, though, lunch was okay. He talked to the others at the table some more and found that they were a loud and rambunctious, though very funny and welcoming, group.

Clint had tried to talk to Phil Coulson a bit, sending the smiles and flirtatious glances that had always dragged in the townie girls his way, but Phil was having none of it. He'd nodded when Steve had introduced them, but then had focused all of his attention on the guy with the goatee, Tony. Even when Clint had tried talking to him a few times, he'd gotten one word answers.

He didn't know why, but Phil Coulson very obviously did not like him. It made it even more awkward when he found out that Phil was in his sixth period biology class and, because of some cruel force of the universe, the teacher had rearranged the seating chart to fit Clint in somewhere, and he had ended up fitted in right next to Phil, with Bobbi, the only other person in the class he knew, all the way across the room.

He'd ended up taking that test in another room anyway, but until the teacher decided to change the seating chart again, he was stuck with the cute guy who apparently hated him. Clint hated that he was kind of hurt by it. He'd had people dislike him before, but usually they had a reason.

Needless to say, by the time Clint got off the school bus on the corner of Nick's street, he was completely and totally done with the whole day. He had a ton of homework that he was supposed to do, but he just couldn't bring himself to start on it. Instead, he helped himself to a sandwich from Nick's kitchen, grabbed his archery kit, and set up in the backyard.

The yard wasn't really long enough to be a challenge to him, but just the rhythmic system of nock, draw, release and the satisfaction of making a perfect shot every time help to soothe his frustration. He shot until it got too dark to see, and as he was coming in the back door, Nick came through the front with a box of KFC chicken under one arm.

They ate in relative silence, punctuated by random spouts of awkward conversation about school and archery. Nick made Clint promise that he would be very careful, because arrows were dangerous weapons, and Clint scoffed that he wouldn't hit anyone unless he meant to. He didn't miss. He could tell that Nick was trying to connect with him, in the same way that the social worker who had ripped him away from his life at Carson's had tried to connect with him.

He understood, on a sensible level, that they were just trying to do what they thought was best for him. But the unreasonable and angry kid inside of him was just mad that he'd been ripped away from the home that he'd made for himself with people he loved and cared about.

Life at Carson's hadn't been easy, but it had been something he'd made for himself and worked hard at, something that was entirely his. He and Barney had run away from foster care when they were kids for a reason, and Clint had spent half his life mucking animal cages and striking the Big Top, freezing in the winter and fighting his way forward in the food line so he could get enough to eat.

It wasn't glamorous, but it was home, and Clint missed it. He felt so out of place in Midgard with the perfectly manicured lawns and the big fancy high school and cheerleading squads that required fees of thousands of dollars. He didn't belong, and no matter how hard Nick tried he knew that he never would.

He didn't even know how long he would be in Midgard. He'd been through six foster homes in two years before he and Barney had run, and he knew how unstable placements could be. That wasn't even to mention that Nick didn't have any other foster kids, which could mean that he was a very temporary placement until they could find somewhere "more suitable" for Clint to go.

The idea of being switched from place to place, always moving and never wanted, made Clint feel sick. It was part of the reason that he'd agreed to run away with Barney in the first place. The other part being, of course, that Barney would have left him behind otherwise and he just hadn't known how to cope with that.

In the end Barney had left him behind anyway, but Clint had had the Zelinskis and Carson and everyone else at the circus, and it hadn't been so bad. But now, Clint couldn't go back to Carson's. He'd caused them enough trouble with the state as it was, and if he ran away again, that was the first place they would look.

"You okay, Clint?" Nick asked as they were finishing up. "You seem...down."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Clint picked off a thin strip of meat that was still clinging to the bone with his fingers and stuck it in his mouth.

"I know that this is a hard adjustment for you," Nick started, and Clint wondered if he thought they were going to suddenly have some sort of heart to heart. "I appreciate the fact that you're trying to get involved, even though you're obviously having a bit of trouble with the transition. I just want you to know that you can feel at home here, without worrying about your placement, okay? As far as I'm concerned, you can stay here as long as you want to, and if you need anything from me you shouldn't be afraid to ask. I'll do what I can to make your life here a good one, okay?"

Clint frowned down at his hands, focusing on picking at a hangnail on his thumb, but he nodded to show he understood. He didn't trust that Nick would treat him like family, because this arrangement wasn't familial. It was Nick getting paid to keep a some kid in his house until he was old enough to go be stupid on his own.

He seemed nice enough, which was great and all, but they weren't family. They had nothing tying them together like that, and Clint knew how relationships worked. He had to have something to offer, and he had nothing. At the circus he had his aim and his showmanship, and the long list of chores he helped with every day.

Here, Nick had a housekeeper that came in once a week, and all Clint was expected to do was go to school. Clint had nothing of worth to offer Nick to make him care, but that was okay. He didn't need Nick to care about him. He just needed him to let Clint stay in his house until he turned eighteen.

He didn't say any of that to Nick, though. Nick was clearly new to the foster care operation, and he obviously thought he was being sincere, even if Clint knew better. There was no reason for him to be a dick.

"Thank you," he said instead. "I'm gonna go upstairs. I've got homework."

He could see that Nick wasn't completely satisfied with that answer, but he just nodded and let Clint go. It was a relief to be alone in his room, even if it wasn't really his. He settled into bed with one of his history books, and he was asleep before he even got halfway through the first chapter.

Clint got disappointed looks from his Spanish teacher when he failed to hand in the word translation worksheet she'd given him, but she didn't say anything other than holding him after to class to introduce him to his tutor, a dark haired freshman named Kate who he vaguely recognized but couldn't quite place. Art with Steve was okay, even though Clint still had no clue on how to draw anything more substantial than a hangman setup.

History went about as well as Spanish had, and gym class had been awkward because all Bobbi and Darcy had wanted to do was talk about how exciting it was that he was on the team with them, and Clint didn't know how to tell them that he wasn't. The good thing about gym class was that he realized that Phil Coulson was in it, and even though he still avoided looking at Clint like he was horribly disfigured or something, it was nice to watch him run around in shorts that showed off strong-looking calves and his cute ass.

Only once did Phil look at him, and Clint had grinned and winked in his direction. He couldn't even begin to describe the expression that had crossed Phil's face, but then he'd firmly turned his back on Clint and sought out one of his friends.

That had hurt a bit, and for the first time Clint wondered if maybe Phil avoided looking at him because he knew that Clint thought he was cute and it grossed him out. Maybe he was a homophobic jerk and Clint didn't want anything to do with him anyway. Except that he was _really_ cute and Clint totally wanted to do some things with him. He'd spent the rest of the class (and their shared lunch period) talking to Bobbi and trying to keep from staring at Phil. Clint had absolutely no desire to get his ass kicked, _thank you_.

Biology was a bit harder. They sat right next to each other, and the lab table was small enough that Clint could feel the heat from Phil's skin coming off of him. He tried catching Phil's eye when he first sat down, but Phil was staring down into his notebook and scribbling in the margins. That lasted only until the teacher approached their desk and smiled pleasantly at them.

"Good, I'm glad you're both here today. Phil, if you would be so kind, I'd like you to tutor Mr. Barton for this class. Since you're going to be lab partners, it only makes sense."

Phil stiffened and shot a sideways glance at Clint, who smiled weakly. He wanted to be able to talk to Phil, yeah, but that didn't mean he wanted Phil to know how dumb he was.

"I don't know, Mr. Jameson," Phil said doubtfully, and Clint realized it was the first time he'd actually heard Phil say more than word at a time. "I'm really busy with basketball and stuff…"

"Oh, it won't be hard," Mr Jameson said, waving away Phil's protests. "It's all very basic stuff, it's really easy." Clint felt his ears get hot. Why did he have to go say that out loud where everyone could hear? He stole another glance at Phil, who looked supremely uncomfortable with it all, but Mr. Jameson wasn't really giving him an option.

"Okay, fine," Phil sighed. "But I want extra credit for this."

"Fair enough. Five extra points added to your final grade?"

"Deal." They shook on it, and Clint didn't think he'd ever felt so embarrassed before. He knew that he and Coulson weren't friends, but it would have been nice if they hadn't haggled over who got saddled with the dumbass in front of everyone.

"Mondays during lunch good?" Phil asked abruptly.

"Oh, uh, sure," Clint said, wishing that he'd managed to sound more suave. "I mean, yeah, that's completely fine. Hey, listen, I wanted to…"

"Quiet down, please, class is starting," Mr. Jameson called, and if Clint could have killed someone with a glare he would have done it then. Phil returned his attention to his notebook and Clint tried to make himself a follow the lecture instead of pathetically watching Phil chew on his lower lip.

"Hey," Clint said when the bell rang, catching Phil's arm as he stood up. Phil jerked away from him like he'd been burned.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I've got to go to my next class." He was gone before Clint could apologize for grabbing him, or even say anything at all.

"Wow," Bobbi said as Clint caught up to her. "Where did Phil rush off to so fast?"

"Class," Clint shrugged, still feeling stung by the way that Phil had jerked away from his touch like he had the plague or something. "I don't think he likes me very much."

"Who, Phil?" She said it like it was the craziest and most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Phil likes everyone. He's literally the nicest person I've ever met."

"Well, he doesn't like me," Clint sighed, unable to hide his disappointment. "I guess it doesn't matter anyway."

Once Natasha found out he was bailing on the cheerleaders, she wouldn't want him around anymore, so he'd have to find somewhere else to sit for lunch, and he could probably find someone else to teach him the really basic science that he had no clue about. Bobbi might do it, if she didn't disown him like Natasha was sure to.

"I can't imagine why Phil wouldn't like you," Bobbi mused, tucking some of her long blonde hair behind her ear. "I think maybe it's just in your head."

"Pay attention the next time we're together," Clint told her. "He won't look at me or acknowledge me unless he has to, and even then he does it for the shortest amount of time he can get away with.

"It doesn't seem very likely, Clint," Bobbi sighed. "But I'll watch for it. I've got to go, I'm going to be late. See you at practice!"

"Yeah, see ya," Clint muttered as she rushed off down the hall. He didn't need Phil Coulson to like him. Even if he did have pretty blue eyes and a really cute smile and a nice butt. He didn't need anyone to like him. He would be fine on his own.

The bell rang overhead and Clint cussed before rushing off to the nearest set of stairs and towards his math class. The day just kept getting worse.

Clint didn't truly know the definition of worse until, at 4:00 that afternoon, he opened the front door and found Natasha Romanov standing on his porch glaring at him like he'd hit her mother. She didn't wait for him to invite her in. In fact, she pushed him back into the house, stalked inside, and slammed the door shut behind her.

"Where the hell were you?" she demanded, crossing her arms testily.

"I…"

"You know what, I don't care. Whatever it was, it was obviously more important than attending your very first practice and making a good impression with your team. If you're not going to take this seriously…"

"What's going on?" Clint stiffened as Nick came down the stairs. He looked at them both, Natasha with fury in her eyes and Clint trying to look innocent. He raised an eyebrow slowly at Clint, but Natasha spoke instead.

"Clint decided to be completely irresponsible and bail on practice today without any sort of warning even though he has teammates who are depending on him," she said, and her eyes narrowed at Clint like she was daring him to protest.

"What team?" Nick asked, looking confused, and Clint remembered he had lied about making the cheerleading team so he could avoid the embarrassment of not being able to afford something that his rich classmates didn't even think about.

"The cheerleading team," Natasha explained impatiently, like Nick should know all this.

"I thought you said you didn't make it?" Nick said, looking back and forth between the two of them, his eyes narrowing.

"I lied," Clint muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and feeling supremely stupid and embarrassed once again. He was getting that feeling a lot lately.

"Why?" Nick asked, while Natasha demanded,

"Why did you even bother trying out? Just to prove that you're such a special circus performer and you're better than us?"

"No!" Clint told Natasha, really not wanting to be any more on her bad side than he already was. "I did want to join, but then you started talking about all the money I had to give! I can't even afford the jacket let alone the uniform, and what's the point in even joining the team if I can't help you guys at Nationals because I can't afford to go? And I know everyone in this stupid town is filthy rich and I don't have any money and I was embarrassed, okay?"

The front hall rang with silence, and Clint wanted nothing more than to run. But he had nowhere else to go, so he stood there in the hall with them both staring at him in the silence. Finally he just shrugged.

"I'm sorry I let you down."

"Well...I understand," Natasha said stiffly. "But next time, just tell me. I'm sorry if it embarrasses you, but I need to know these things."

"I will," Clint mumbled, though he wasn't sure if he was being entirely truthful.

"And next time, tell me," Nick spoke up, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at Clint sternly. "If you want to do cheerleading, I'll pay for it."

"It's a lot of money," Clint said quickly. "Like at least a thousand dollars. I couldn't pay you back."

"Clint, you don't need to pay me back," Nick said, rolling his eye. "While you're living with me, you're under my care, I'm gonna treat you like family. I've got plenty of money lying around, I can handle paying for something that will make you happy here."

Clint didn't get it, but he really wanted it, so he just nodded. Maybe he would pay for it later, because nothing was free, but he was going to take it anyway. It wasn't even like he had a good enough excuse to deny the gift, even if he'd wanted to.

"Um. Thank you," he said, clenching his fingers tightly in his pockets.

"You're welcome. Now go get the permission slip so I can sign it, and we'll sort out the money issue, okay?"

Clint didn't know what to say, so he just slipped past Nick up the stairs to go grab the folder Natasha had given him. None of it made any sense at all, but Clint wasn't going to argue with good fortune. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad here after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The weeks passed quickly after Clint joined the cheerleading squad. Between that, homework, and tutoring, he'd been busy enough that Nick had managed to convince him not to get a job. Instead, he received an allowance of a hundred dollars a month. He almost hadn't believed it at first, but he had a nice amount of cash building up in his hiding spot (rolled up, rubber-banded, and stuck in a large ibuprofen bottle) that proved Nick was as good as his word.

He spent his days going to school, going to practice, and doing homework. Nick had found a local archery range, and Clint spent a lot of freetime there as well, though not as much as he would have liked.

At the circus, archery was what kept him fed, but in Midgard it was just a pastime that he happened to be very, very good at, even if the range owners were constantly getting on him about his form. He could outshoot both of them blindfolded, though, so he wasn't too bothered by it.

He'd settled in at school pretty well. Once he started learning the basics in tutoring, his classes got much easier and his grades were actually pretty good. He'd discovered that he was actually really good at math, and he picked it up quicker than anything else. His teacher had suggested that he sign up for the accelerated course next year, and Clint thought he might do it. It was nice to be good at something useful for once.

He'd also settled into a group of friends. Even though he ate lunch with them every day, he'd still been kind of surprised when he'd realized that he was part of the group, and that they had all taken for granted that he would be a part of their out-of-school plans.

He really liked having friends. It was nice to have people who wanted to talk to him for no reason other than they that liked him. They thought he was funny, and besides Phil Coulson, Clint felt totally comfortable around them.

Even after a month and half of hanging out in the same friend group, biology tutoring every Monday, and joint cheerleader/basketball team IHOP runs after games, Phil still hadn't warmed up to Clint. He was polite enough, but he was very obviously distant from Clint. He always made sure to keep space between them, like maybe he thought he might catch a disease, and they never talked about anything but school work, if they talked at all.

It was depressing, especially because Phil was such a nice guy to most everyone else. He was very open and welcoming, and always helped people if they needed it. Clint had a hopeless crush on him, and it was absolutely the worst because he knew he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. Phil didn't even like him.

The others had noticed Phil's indifference and had tried to force them together and make them get along. It only made things even more awkward, and Clint lived in constant fear that one day Phil might make them choose between him and Clint. He knew who they would choose, after all, and his life would really suck if he had to go back to being alone.

"Hey, where are you, bird brain?"

Clint snapped out of his thoughts and looked across the table at Kate, who was staring at him with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Uh, what?" he asked dumbly, and she snorted at him.

"I just asked you to conjugate _conocer_," she said, and continued to stare at him, waiting.

Kate was great at Spanish, and she was a good teacher, but she easily got impatient when his mind wandered, which was often. It was a problem he had in class because he hated being idle. All of his notebooks had tons of doodles in the margins, which he used as a method to distract his brain while still listening to the lecture.

"_Conozco, conoce, conoces, conocemos, conocen,"_ he said, the language coming to him easily.

He was pretty good with languages, and Russian and Spanish could be weirdly similar sometimes, so it was easier to pick up. Still he kind of felt like the class was a waste of his time since he was already fluent in three other languages.

When he'd brought that up to Nick, he'd discovered that he couldn't test out for the credits because he didn't know how to write in cyrillic. He'd been taught both Russian and Ukrainian since he was eight, and had gone for days without speaking a word of English while with Carson's, but apparently that wasn't good enough for the New York State Board of Education. So he was stuck with Spanish, and even though it wasn't hard, it was excruciating to learn basic grammar bit by bit.

"You're getting pretty good at this," Kate said. "You remembered that it was irregular that time." She reached into her purse, pulled out a large bag of Skittles and shook some out onto the edge of his paper. She often brought along snacks to their study sessions, insisting that she believed in positive reinforcement. It kind of made Clint feel like a good dog, but he wasn't going to turn down free food.

"What can I say, conjugating verbs is my life," Clint responded dryly.

Kate frowned at him and tucked a piece of her long black hair behind her ear. The thing about Kate was that she could read him like an open book. She was a fellow cheerleader even though she was only a freshman, and she also went to the same archery range that Clint went to, so they saw a lot of each other.

"What's up with you?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes at him. Clint picked out the purple Skittles, popped them into his mouth, chewed slowly, and tried to decide if he was going to tell Kate the truth or not.

"Don't lie to me, Clint Barton."

He scowled at her, but decided it was in his best interest to answer. "Jeez, you're so bossy. I was just thinking about Phil Coulson."

"About your giant crush on him or the fact that he ignores your existence?" Kate asked drily, and Clint glared at her.

"I don't have a giant crush on him," he denied. "It's a little crush at most."

"Yeah, right," Kate snorted. "You look at him like he hung the moon. Which I totally don't get because he's not very nice to you."

"He's not mean to me," Clint insisted. "I just...think he doesn't like me very much."

"Then he's not worth your time," Kate shrugged. "I don't see why you don't date someone else. Bobbi is pretty in to you."

Clint raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. "Really?"

"Oh yeah. She thinks you're cute. She'd definitely say yes, if you asked her out." Clint thought about that for a moment. He certainly liked Bobbi. She was funny and fun and beautiful. But it just didn't seem right.

"I don't think so," he told Kate. "I like her, but I don't think I want to date her."

Kate shrugged at that, popping a handful of Skittles in her mouth. "So what, are you going to try and convince Phil Coulson to go out with you?"

"No," Clint sighed. "I think I'm just gonna try and get him to be my friend. It seems kind of shitty to only make an effort if he'll date me."

"So, what, your plan is to make friends and then hit on him?" Kate did not look impressed.

"No!" Clint exclaimed, sticking his tongue out at her. "My plan is to make friends with him, and that's it. My crush isn't his problem, but I do want to get along with him, and I think it'll be easier to get over him if I can consider him my friend and not just that really cute guy that actively ignores me."

Kate gave him more Skittles and an approving look. "That sounds like a decent idea, Clint. And how are you going to make friends with him when he ignores you?"

"I don't know," Clint groaned dropping his forehead to the table. "I mean, maybe he just thinks I'm really annoying? Maybe I should just act different?" Kate met his eyes in a hard stare and then pointedly reached out and took away the rest of the Skittles she had given him.

"Or...not?" he offered.

"Yeah, or not. Don't go changing yourself to try and please people."

"It worked in _Grease_," Clint muttered, looking forlornly at the bag of Skittles.

"Why don't you just try being nice?" Kate asked. "Like, I don't know, ask him about his life or offer to help him with something or bring him something that made you think of him. Not anything extravagant, but just like a peace offering or something?"

"Yeah," Clint said slowly. His mind raced with possibilities of nice things he might be able to do for Phil. "I can do that."

Kate approvingly gave him some more Skittles, and Clint scooped them up into his hand to prevent her from taking them back again. The bell signaling the end of the period rang, and Kate sighed loudly, closing her Spanish book and tucking it away into her bag.

"I really don't feel like going to practice today," she sighed. Clint tossed his own things into his backpack and shouldered it. "Do you think Nat would kill me if I skipped?"

"Almost definitely," Clint told her.

Natasha was a great cheerleader and gymnast and she had an eye for really good routines, but she could be a ruthless drill sergeant when she got into the right sort of mood for it.

Nationals was in mid-May, just under two months away, and Natasha was determined to be ready for it. Add in the fact that the basketball semi-finals were taking place at Shield Academy that year and that they would be expected to run the half-time show, and Natasha was just past the far side of crazy.

Their practices were becoming twice as long as normal, and twice as hard. She kept bringing them back to the fundamentals, which was fine for Clint, who was still pretty new to cheerleading, but there was only so many times he could do the same thing over and over again.

"We're doing lifts and flying today," Natasha announced after they had all assembled in the gym and stretched out.

They were on the main floor today, because it would be very ill-advised to do basket-tosses on the suspended track. This meant that they were sharing the floor with the basketball team on the other side, who were playing a scrimmage game. It would take extra special effort for him to not watch Phil when he was right there.

Distracted by the idea of Phil Coulson, it took him a moment to process what Natasha said. When he did, he almost groaned out loud. Tossing someone up in the air and catching her again over and over and over for a straight hour was really going to take it out of him, and he had wanted to go to the range later. He knew better than to let Natasha hear him complaining, though.

For a long second he wished that he'd been paired with Jan, because she was the smallest of their fliers and therefore relatively easy to get up in the air. To be fair, though, Jan was paired up with Darcy and Skye, probably to make it easier for them to get her up.

Also, Natasha was his flier, and she was easily the most skilled of them all. She was pretty easy to catch because she was extremely controlled, so even though she was a bit more solid than Jan, she was probably, in all reality, the easiest flier to base for.

"Okay, I want to see some scorpions," Natasha called, making Kate groan loudly. "You have been working on locking your leg out, haven't you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kate grumbled, and then demonstrated. She leaned forward a bit, squaring her hips, and lifted her leg up behind her. She grabbed the front of her foot and pulled it all the way up, and surely enough she managed an almost full extension.

"Almost," Natasha allowed, and Kate rolled her eyes.

The others paired off into their groups and started getting ready for the lift, but Natasha looked thoughtful as she approached them. Clint could tell she was sizing him and Danny, his base partner, up and finally her eyes settled on him.

"Clint, I want to try something."

"Okay," Clint said, drawing the word out. "It's not going to hurt me, is it?"

"Not if you do it right," Natasha shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal. Clint knew, though, that if he got hurt she'd be pissed because she'd have to rearrange all the sets and cheers (again). And she'd blame him, whether it was his fault or not.

"Okay, what are we doing?" he asked.

"A single-base cupie into a scorpion," she said. "We'll see if we can even get me up with you as the base, and then we'll see if we can manage it one-handed."

Clint wasn't so sure how he felt about trying to hold Natasha above his head with one hand, but if she thought they might be able to pull it off, they probably could. She was smart about those kinds of things.

"Okay, so how are we doing this? Walk me through it."

"It's pretty simple," Natasha said, but Clint doubted that it was. "I'm gonna stand in front of you, and you're gonna put your hands on my waist, and I'll have my hands on your arms. You're going to crouch and lift with your legs, and I'm going to jump up at the same time for the toss. You're gonna catch me just like you would for a regular scorpion, except it'll just be you. Lock your damn arms at the elbow, if you drop me, I will hurt you."

"Got it," Clint said, praying internally to some force of the universe that he wouldn't drop her.

She took her position in front of him, and he placed his hands on her waist, getting a good grip, but not holding too tight. She grabbed his forearms, just above the wrists, and they both crouched for the toss. Clint could tell as soon as her feet left the ground that there wasn't enough power to gain the height they'd need for him to catch her properly. He caught her around the waist instead so she wouldn't hit the ground too hard.

"Let me try that again," he said quickly. He was used to lifting with two bases, and he hadn't really accounted for the lack of Danny's strength, but now that he'd gotten a feel for it he was pretty sure he could get her up there. "Danny come over here, just in case she falls."

"Bobbi, go join one of the other groups," Natasha instructed. "I think we're going to be doing this for a while, and you should get some work done, too."

Bobbi wandered off to go join another group without a complaint, and Clint got back in position. It would look really cool, if they managed to pull it off. He was determined to get it right.

"Ready?" Natasha asked, and he nodded.

They got back into position again, and this time, Clint put enough thrust in his toss to get her up high enough for him to grab the bottoms of her feet and extend her properly. Natasha held herself tight and controlled until Clint found his balance and locked his arms tight, keeping her securely up in the air.

Once she was sure of his balance, Natasha carefully switched her weight to her right foot and pulled the left one up behind her. She only got her leg halfway up before their balances got off and she fell, but she recovered well and landed neatly in his and Danny's arms.

"Well, better than I thought we'd do on our second try anyway," Natasha said, eyeing him critically.

He knew it hadn't been his fault, since once she was up he was just supposed to stay still until she came down again, but he didn't say anything. The lift had worked, but it hadn't been particularly pretty, and that part was on him.

"Again?" he asked.

"Yeah. Watch closely, Danny. Once we figure this out, you'll be learning to do it too."

They tried another three times before they managed to get it right. When Natasha's leg locked out, Clint felt more powerful than he ever had, holding her up there all by himself. She was depending on him to help keep her up there, and he was doing it.

They kept it up for longer than was necessary, and Clint suspected it was because she felt just as awesome about it as he did, even though she probably wouldn't admit it. After a full minute or so, his arms were beaded with sweat and had started to shake a little with the exertion, and he was just about to start taking her down when there was a loud shout of,

"Holy shit, watch out!"

and before he knew it, Natasha was hit in the knee with a basketball and falling fast and uncontrolled. He and Danny caught her hard, and Clint winced at the bruises she would definitely have on her back.

Thankfully, Danny had the foresight to let Clint take the brunt of her weight and had cradled her head to keep her neck from snapping back. While she would hurt for a few days, it wasn't anything serious, though it easily could have been.

"What the hell?" Natasha spat, getting her feet on the ground and marching angrily towards the basketball team. She didn't get far, because Phil was rushing towards her with a pale face.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" he said, his hands fluttering awkwardly in front of her like he wanted to grab her and make sure she wasn't broken, but was afraid she would hurt him if he tried. Clint understood that feeling. "Are you okay?"

"I'm going to have bruises the size of Texas," Natasha grumbled, rubbing at her back.

"Coulson!" the basketball coach yelled, approaching as well. "You see what happens when you don't pay attention? You lose track of the ball, people get hurt! Get your head out of the damn clouds and into the game!"

"Yes Coach," Phil said quickly. "Sorry sir."

"Are you okay, Romanov?" the coach asked, and Natasha shrugged.

"I'll live."

"Well, good. Coulson, you're a disgrace. Go run laps until the end of practice." Phil winced, but nodded.

"Yes, Coach."

Clint felt kind of bad for him as he watched him trudge off towards the stairs to the suspended track. Yeah, he should have been more careful, but Natasha would be okay, and it wasn't like no one else had ever lapsed in attention for a minute or two. Calling him a disgrace was a bit much.

"Sorry about the rough catch," he told Natasha, who shrugged off his apology.

"It's fine, it couldn't be helped. But I'm feeling pretty sore now, so I think we'll stop for today. We only have ten minutes left anyway."

Clint waited to leave until she'd addressed the whole squad about it and reminded them to practice various areas where they were weak. He was quite suddenly exhausted, and all he wanted to do was wash off the sweat and go home for a nap. Unfortunately, he had homework to do and he also had to figure out how he was going to get Phil to be his friend, so a nap was probably not in his immediate future.

It would probably be worth it.

* * *

><p>"You're blocking my locker." Clint snapped to attention, looking away from the garish orange and green mini-skirt the girl standing across the hall was wearing to Phil Coulson, who looked tired.<p>

He was wearing thick-framed glasses today, and Clint was kind of dumbstruck. He hadn't even known that Phil wore glasses, but they looked amazing on him. Kind of geeky-adorable, and Clint wanted to stare at him for hours.

"So, are you going to move?" Phil asked, sounding testy, and Clint remembered that he had his back pressed up against Phil's locker door.

"Oh right, sorry." Clint pushed away from the row of lockers, letting Phil slip past him to start working at the lock. "I didn't know you wore glasses."

He hoped Phil didn't think it was stupid, how desperate Clint was to talk to him about anything.

"Yeah, well," Phil said, adjusting the frames on his nose. "I don't wear them very often."

"You should," Clint said quickly, happy that Phil was responding to his fumbled attempt at conversation. It was more than he usually got. "They look really good."

"Yeah, okay," Phil scoffed like he didn't believe him. "Is there something you wanted?"

"Oh!" Clint dug into his bag at the reminder. The gas-station donuts that he'd picked up on the way to school were slightly squashed from his math book, but not so badly that he was embarrassed to hand them over. "I um, I know you like these, and I saw them at the gas station this morning so I just...here."

He awkwardly shoved the package at Phil until Phil took it from him, his eyebrows hiked high on his forehead. "You got me donuts?"

"Uh, yeah," Clint said, suddenly feeling kind of stupid. "I just thought you'd like them." Clint hoped that Phil wouldn't ask him why. He didn't know that he had the words to explain it without sounding like a creep.

"Okay," Phil said, drawing out the word a bit, like he thought Clint was crazy. "Thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome," Clint said, beaming at him. "So I was thinking…"

"Listen, Barton, I've got to get to class. I have to ask my teacher about an assignment," Phil interrupted, and Clint felt his smile dim at the use of his last name.

"Oh, uh, yeah, no problem. I'll see you at lunch?"

"Most likely," Phil confirmed, before slamming his locker shut and heading off down the hall. Clint tried not to feel too hurt. They'd had a whole conversation, and Phil had taken his gift, so that had to be a good sign.

"Okay, so what was that about?"

Clint almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of Bucky's voice. He and Natasha approached, his arm over her shoulders, and they both fixed him with identical suspicious stares.

"Nothing," Clint said defensively, recoiling a bit from the power of their combined gaze. "I was just being nice."

"Are you seriously trying to get into Phil's pants with gas station donuts?" Natasha asked. She didn't look impressed, and Clint was kind of insulted.

"I'm not trying to get into his pants," he huffed at her.

"Good," Bucky snorted. "Because you just crashed and burned. I've never seen him look so freaked, and I saw him break his ankle during a game once."

Clint frowned down at the white toes of the new Chucks Nick had bought him a few weeks before, resisting the urge to scuff them against the floor and ruin the smooth surface. Instead, he tangled his fingers in the strap of his bag and tugged at it.

"You think I make him uncomfortable?" he asked.

He felt so stupid. The donuts had seemed like such a good idea that morning when he saw them. Phil's love for them was legendary, and it wasn't like he'd gotten something big and expensive that might make Phil feel obligated to be nice to him. But instead of seeming like a nice gesture, maybe it just came off as the weird carnie kid offering a cheap gift out of nowhere.

Natasha elbowed Bucky sharply in the side, making him hiss and pull away from her with a glare. He rubbed at his injured side with his good hand and swung his prosthetic one back at her. She neatly sidestepped his swing and then addressed Clint as if none of it had happened.

"I don't think you make him uncomfortable. I think a random gift out of nowhere confused him." She ignored the way Bucky poked her in the side and focused her eyes on Clint's.

"I'm just trying to be his friend," Clint sighed. "I don't know why he doesn't like me, I don't know what I did. But I know it makes group outings awkward, and I know that everyone likes Phil and Phil likes everyone except me. I'm just trying to fix it."

"Maybe you should just leave him alone," Natasha said with a frown. "He's not required to be your friend if he doesn't want to be."

"I know," Clint sighed. "I just thought I'd try."

"Look, Clint," Bucky spoke up. "I like you, you're a good guy. But things are already awkward enough when we all hang and Phil gives you the cold shoulder. I'm not saying that we'd choose him over you or anything, but maybe it's just better if you don't poke the bear. I mean, we already tried to get you two to be friendly and it didn't work, right?"

"Yeah," Clint sighed, "I just don't know what I did."

"Maybe you didn't do anything at all," Bucky shrugged. "Maybe Phil's just decided to be an asshole for no reason. But I just think you pushing him won't help anything."

"I don't want to push him," Clint assured him, unable to ignore the feeling that something was wrong with him. "I'll give it a few tries, and if he doesn't warm up to me, I'll leave him alone. He can go back to ignoring me and I'll try to get over it."

"Just...don't push him too hard," Natasha warned, her face troubled. "I don't know what his deal is, but he must have a reason. And don't get your hopes up, Clint. I don't want you to feel like it's your fault if it doesn't work out." Clint couldn't see who else's fault it could be, but he just nodded.

"Yeah, okay. So...did either of you guys have any ideas for me? I've never tried to convince someone to be my friend before."

At this, Natasha smirked. "Sorry, you're on your own for that one. We've got to get to class."

As if the universe was on her side, the class warning bell rang overhead and she and Bucky went off down the hall the same way Phil had gone. Clint realized that he still had to go to his locker, cursed, and started to run so he wouldn't be late for class.

* * *

><p>Practice that night was more single-base stunts, except that Danny was acting as Natasha's base instead of Clint. Since Clint was only there to help catch Natasha when she came down, he had a lot of time to watch Phil play.<p>

Clint didn't know a ton about basketball, but he could tell that Phil was good and that he worked well with his team. They were like a well-oiled unit, barely even having to shout to each other because they were all where they were supposed to be. It was nice to watch, and Clint found himself having a hard time making himself pay attention to Tasha.

"So are you going to the party at Tony's tonight?" Natasha asked as she and Danny found their balance together. Danny had taken a couple uneven steps after he caught her feet in order to balance them back out, but now they were both standing strong and confident.

"I wasn't invited." Clint hoped he didn't sound as hurt as he felt. He'd thought he and Tony were friends, but he hadn't even known Tony was having a party.

"No one gets invited to Tony's parties," she said, lifting her foot up behind her. "He announces that he's having one to a group at some random time and people talk and then everyone shows up at his house. Tony thinks he's too cool to just act like a normal person."

As if to prove her point, Tony let out a victorious yell across the gym and sank down to his knees before ripping his shirt off and raising his fists towards the ceiling.

"Stark, you drama queen, get up!" the Coach Blake snapped, but Clint could see that the rest of Tony's teammates were grinning in amusement. Even Steve was smiling, though he was trying to hide it.

"That was a three point swish, coach!" Tony called. "Something like that deserves a Brandi Chastain moment."

"Not when you're supposed to be working on passing to your team mates! Barnes and Cap were wide open! Coulson could have made that shot too, but he passed to you because he knows how to support his team instead of being a glory hound! No points for that, Stark."

Tony let out a string of cuss words and scowled at the coach before getting back into the game.

"So, you see my point," Natasha said dryly. "Now are you gonna keep staring at Phil or are you going to help catch me?"

Clint guiltily tore his eyes away from Phil and framed Danny's arms with his own, so when Natasha jumped and spun off her perch she landed neatly in the cradle of their arms.

"That's gonna look so amazing when it all comes together," she said, and Clint could see the crazy glint in her eyes that meant she was getting ready to add a new routine. "And you, are you going to Tony's party or not?"

"Going, I guess," Clint shrugged. "If Nick lets me."

"Well, ask him. If he says yes I'll pick you up in front of your house at eight. If he says no, I'll pick you up a block down from your house at eight." She said this without a trace of humor, like she was totally serious that he was going whether he was allowed or not.

"You know he doesn't have to keep me if I fuck up, right?" Clint asked dryly, even though he was now pretty thoroughly convinced that Nick wouldn't send him away. "I can be put back into the system at the drop of a hat."

She didn't seem impressed by his protest. He didn't suppose someone who'd lived in the same house with the same people her whole life would.

"Oh please. I've known Fury my whole life, there's no way he'll kick you out for sneaking out. It's practically a rite of passage for teenagers, isn't it?"

"Well, I wouldn't know. For a long time my curfew was 'be back before the caravan moves out or you'll be left behind'. So I wasn't exactly pressing my luck when it came to punctuality."

"Yeah, yeah, Clint grew up with the circus, you're so impressive. You're going to Tony's party."

"Nat…"

"Phil will be there." She smiled sweetly at him as she added that last part, like she didn't know she had him by the balls with that one.

"God damn it," he grumbled. "Okay, fine, I'll go to Tony's party. But if I get kicked out of my foster home, I'm never speaking to you again."

"I'll try to recover."

"You'd miss me," Clint accused her, and he found confirmation in the tiny smile that spread across her lips for only a moment.

"If I were you, I'd worry more about what I'm going to do to you if you don't go to the party," she warned. "Danny, let's go again."

Clint heaved a heavy sigh and got back into place to provide assistance if Danny needed it.

* * *

><p>By the time the end of practice rolled around, Danny and Natasha were pretty smoothly executing different tricks with a single base, and it was pretty amazing to watch. Clint was a great gymnast, but Danny had been a cheerleader a lot longer than Clint had and therefore just picked up on some things faster.<p>

Clint chose to view it as a friendly competition to push himself to be better. He didn't think Danny put much thought into it.

When Natasha finally called for them to head on home, the basketball team had all cleared out except for Phil, who was standing at the foul line with a mostly-empty rack of basketballs practicing his jump shot. Natasha cast him a knowing look as he hung around conspicuously while everyone else filed out, but she didn't say anything.

Clint continued to watch Phil take shots. He made most of them, but still seemed frustrated. Clint wasn't sure if that was because of his misses or because he was trying to work something out.

Every time he took a shot he let the ball bounce away from the net and just grabbed a new one from the rack. When he was down to the last ball, Clint retrieved one from where it had rolled under the bottom step of the bleachers and whistled sharply. Phil snapped out of his daze and looked over at him.

His face was wary, and Clint changed his mind about trying to stumble through another awkward conversation. Instead, he just tossed the ball in his hand to Phil and went to retrieve another one while Phil shot it.

They did this for about twenty minutes before Phil stopped and just stared at Clint with a perplexed look on his face. Clint just tossed him the ball he had in his hands instead of saying anything, and Phil placed it on the rack. Clint grabbed another one and threw that to him as well, and after this happened five times, Phil made a frustrated noise.

"Did you want something?" he demanded, setting the current ball in the rack a little harder than was strictly necessary.

"Just being helpful," Clint shrugged, throwing over another ball.

"But _why_?" Phil demanded.

"I'm a helpful guy," Clint said.

"Well, I don't need help."

For a minute, Clint wanted to get angry. He wanted to take the ball in his hand and hurl it at Phil as hard as he could and demand to know why he wasn't good enough, and what he'd done wrong.

But only for a moment.

Instead, he took a breath and tossed the ball gently, underhand, to Phil, said, "Okay then," and turned and left the gym.

He'd promised Natasha and Bucky he wouldn't push, so he wouldn't. But he still felt a small thrill of victory in the fact that Phil had allowed him to hang around for nearly half hour before shutting him down. It wasn't much, but it was progress, and Clint would take it.

Phil must have waited around until Clint left the locker room so he wouldn't have to talk to him, because he never came in in all the time it took Clint to shower and change back into his street clothes. They didn't even pass each other in the hallway, and Clint determinedly did not look into the gym to see if he was still there, watching and waiting for Clint to leave.

* * *

><p>"So, are you going to Tony Stark's party tonight?" Nick asked a few hours later as they ate dinner.<p>

Clint had just stuck a rather large piece of broccoli in his mouth when Nick asked, and he almost choked on it in surprise. After a few quick chews, Clint swallowed and took a drink of his gatorade before answering.

"How did you…"

"Oh please," Nick rolled his good eye. "I'm the principal, I know everything. And no one ever called Tony Stark discreet. So are you going?"

"Um, well…" Clint suddenly felt trapped. "Nat wanted me to. Can I?"

"Yeah," Nick sighed. "Why the hell not? But if you come back to this house drunk you're never leaving it again. I'm not stupid enough to believe that there won't be alcohol there or that you won't have any. I'd prefer that you didn't, but I'm also aware that you're a teenager. If you drink, just stay at Tony's for the night, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Clint agreed. He probably wouldn't drink anyway. Alcohol made people mean, and he didn't want to be like that. "Thanks, I guess."

"Yeah, yeah. And don't let any of your friends drive drunk, you hear me?"

"Yessir," Clint answered, shoveling a forkful of noodles and chicken into his mouth so he wouldn't have to say any more than that.

Nick looked satisfied that his threat was understood. He nodded and turned back to his food, and the rest of dinner was accompanied only by the sound of forks scraping against plates.

Just as they were finishing up, Clint's phone chimed in his pocket. A quick glance downward that definitely wasn't fooling Nick at all (he had a strict no-cell-phones-at-the-dinner-table rule) revealed that the message was from Natasha.

"Can I be excused?" he asked and then practically jumped out of his chair to clear his place when Nick waved him off. He didn't get a chance to check the message before Natasha was calling him, apparently unwilling to wait any longer.

"Am I picking you up in front of your house or down the block?" she asked, not wasting time with a greeting.

"In front." Clint tried to hide his amused smile, as if she was there to see it.

He stuck his dishes in the dishwasher and then headed up the stairs to his bedroom. After the first month, he'd finally given in to the idea that maybe he would be around for a while and had done some decorating. Nick had let him paint the walls a rich purple color called "summer plum" and he'd hung some posters and pictures on the wall.

One was large advertisement for Carson's Carnival of Travelling Wonders, inviting audiences to come view the "daring and original acrobatic displays of the Fantastic Zelinskis!" The picture on it was from two summers ago and featured Alyosha balancing on a tightrope with Olena flipped upside down above him, balancing all her weight on one hand that was resting on top of Alyosha's head.

He'd received it in the mail, along with a picture of the whole circus, performers and crew alike, crowded into the center ring of the big top, a smaller "Amazing Hawkeye" poster that made him grin with equal delight and embarrassment, and a long, handwritten letter from Olena, detailing all the things he'd missed since he'd been gone, and assuring him that they'd received no less than a hundred inquiries from guests about what had happened to the amazing marksman. Even if the last part wasn't true, the thought that he was missed had made Clint smile.

He also had a few music posters around the place, and the wall above his desk was covered with photographs of him and his friends that he'd printed from facebook, and also the one the Zelinskis had sent him. The place truly felt like Clint had carved out his own place in the world, that he belonged there, and he thought he might do anything to get to stay until he was 18.

"So did Fury make a big deal about the party?" Natasha asked. Clint collapsed heavily onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"No. He brought it up, actually. He told me just to stay at Tony's for the night if I was gonna drink, but I probably won't anyway."

"Boo, you whore," Natasha retorted, and Clint couldn't hide his grin that time.

"I'm not big on alcohol," he offered as an explanation, and Natasha didn't push.

"So what are you gonna wear?" she asked him. Clint glanced down at what he'd worn to school that day. The clothes were still pretty new and nice-looking, since he'd gotten them a few weeks after he'd moved in, when Nick had seemed to realize that Clint literally owned four t-shirts and a two pairs of jeans. He'd spent a weekend taking Clint shopping for more clothes than he necessarily needed. Living with a generous rich guy was kind of awesome.

"I'm guessing 'what I wore to school today' is not the answer you're looking for," he offered, and he could practically hear the disgusted face he was sure Tasha had made.

"You mean the t-shirt that says 'I do my own stunts'? Yeah, that's not the answer I'm looking for."

"What does it matter?" Clint grumbled. "Everyone sees me every day, they know what I wear. I'm not trying to impress anyone."

"You are such a guy," Natasha groaned. "It's not about impressing anyone, it's about having the opportunity to look really hot."

"Nat," he said warily, but she cut him off.

"You know what? I don't trust you to do this. Go get in the shower, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"This is just an elaborate set up so that you can treat me like a barbie, isn't it?" he grumbled, but he was already getting out of bed so that he could kick off his jeans.

"Twenty minutes, Barton."

She hung up before he could offer up anymore protests, and Clint left the rest of his clothes on the floor and headed towards his bathroom. He spent a few minutes enjoying the feel of hot water on his skin, but by the time he'd actually washed and dried off, Natasha still hadn't arrived. Rather than wait around awkwardly in a towel for her to show up, he pulled on the sweatpants he'd received along with his cheerleading uniform.

They were black and said "Shield Cheerleading" down the right leg in big purple letters. His first name was embroidered high on the left thigh, which he supposed would come in handy if he ever lost his memory. If he paired it with the cheerleading hoodie that he'd been given that had his last name spelled out down the right arm, he'd be all set for an amnesiac episode.

He spent the last few minutes until Natasha arrived checking facebook on his phone. Everyone on his wall was talking about Tony's party. Apparently it was a Very Big Deal.

When Natasha arrived, she let herself in without knocking, and Clint didn't even protest. He'd spent a lot of time in shared quarters, so he was used to having people in his space. She was dressed in sweatpants like he was, but she had a bag slung over her shoulder. He really hoped the bag was for her and not him.

Again, without asking, Natasha started digging through his closet, making annoying tutting sounds as she flicked through the hangers. After a few minutes a pair of medium-wash jeans came flying out to land on his bed, followed by a high-collared, twill, military-style jacket so dark gray it was almost black.

So far, Clint was relieved. Natasha had chosen comfortable things, even if he did think he'd get pretty hot if she expected him to wear that jacket all night. At least she wasn't trying to wrestle him into leather pants or something.

"Do you have any shirts that actually fit properly?" Natasha demanded after another few minutes of rustling.

"Um yeah, all of them."

"Not. These are all too big for you. You should be wearing at least a size smaller." Natasha leaned out of the closet for a moment to fix him with a judgmental look.

Clint just rolled his eyes and took the opportunity to change into the jeans Natasha had chosen. They were his favorite pair, comfortable and soft in all the right places in the way that only really expensive or really old jeans could be.

"Ooh!" Natasha said happily, and Clint wondered what she could have possibly found in there. He was relieved when she came out with a gray t-shirt that still had the tags on. He had grabbed the wrong size and never gotten around to returning it.

"That shirt doesn't fit," Clint told her, and she rolled her eyes.

"You don't know what 'fit' means. Put it on."

Clint knew by now that it was better to just do as he was told when Natasha was the one giving the orders. He pulled it over his head obediently, and was surprised to find that it wasn't as tight as he thought it would be. The shirt clung to his biceps and chest, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

"Go look," Natasha demanded, and Clint dutifully trudged into the bathroom. He was surprised by what he saw. He'd thought that he would look a bit like a stuffed sausage, but he actually looked really good.

"See?" Natasha said, like she could read his mind. "You look hot. Maybe now you'll buy clothes that fit."

"Yeah, maybe," Clint answered noncommittally.

"Okay, now get out. I have to get ready."

She ushered him out of the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Clint heaved a sigh and decided to get some homework done while he waited.

* * *

><p>Natasha had to park her fancy car (with the built-in GPS and automatic parallel parking) three blocks away from Tony's house because there was not a single parking space to be found any closer than that.<p>

There were plenty of people parking further down the street, and others walking in the direction that Clint assumed Tony's house was in. He'd had the idea that the party was going to be huge, but suddenly he wasn't sure he understood the definition of huge.

"I should have told James to rope me off a place," Natasha sighed. "These shoes were not made for a lot of walking."

"Why would you ever buy shoes that aren't made for walking?" Clint demanded, looking down at her strappy black spike heels accusingly.

"They're for _aesthetic_, Barton." Natasha rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. The point is to show up looking great, get everyone to stare at me and make James a bit jealous, and then kick them off and crush Tony and Steve at beer pong."

"That's the point?" Clint asked doubtfully, double stepping to keep up. Even in her very high heels, Natasha was walking quickly and with purpose. "And I suppose that's also the point of this shirt with no back?"

"Yes." Her tone left no room for argument.

He couldn't really argue with her logic when they got to the party and Bucky was almost immediately next to her and sliding his arm around her back. Clint wasn't sure if it was to show possession or to try and cover up the large expanse of bare skin revealed by Natasha's shirt, which was actually more like a black piece of cloth tied on with some strings.

"Okay, I'm impressed," he told Natasha. She grinned, but Bucky scowled at him with narrowed eyes like he thought Clint might suddenly be interested in his girlfriend. He ducked down and captured Natasha's mouth with his, making her laugh and grab onto him.

Clint considered leaving them to their macking, but when he looked around Tony's humongous house (which was, in all reality, a mansion) all he saw was bodies pressed close, and suddenly he was intimidated. He had zero desire to plunge into the crowd by himself and potentially get lost, so he decided to wait them out.

Luckily, Bobbi appeared out of the crowd less than a minute later and snagged him by the elbow, dragging him away from Bucky and Natasha, who were getting progressively more awkward to be around.

"Hey!" she yelled over the loud dubstep that was blasting through the house. "Come get a drink with me!" He agreed quickly, but then, he thought he might have agreed to jumping off the roof if it meant he would escape the hormone twins.

"Any chance there will be something without alcohol?" he asked as they pushed through a few doors and into the kitchen, which was a bit quieter than the other rooms had been. There probably weren't any wireless speakers in the kitchen.

"I don't know," Bobbi frowned. "You can check the fridge. Tony won't mind." Clint scooted past a pair of guys who were slamming back a row of shots and towards the gigantic stainless steel refrigerator set in the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen. It was stocked with wine coolers in every flavor, but towards the bottom Clint found a couple cases of soda. He grabbed a Dr. Pepper and made his way back to Bobbi who was pouring orange juice into a red solo cup.

"Are you DD?" she asked when he was close enough for them to not have to yell across the kitchen at each other. She picked up a large bottle of Grey Goose and tipped a very liberal amount into her cup.

"Nah, I just don't drink," Clint shrugged. He popped the tab on his Dr. Pepper and took a sip.

"Oh," Bobbi looked at him like she thought that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, but thankfully she didn't press him for a reason. Instead, she chugged her drink down in less than a minute and went to pour another one.

"Wow," Clint said, raising his eyebrows at her. "Are you looking to get totally plastered?" Bobbi wasn't exactly a small girl, but she wasn't large either, and if she kept drinking like that she would be very drunk very fast.

"A little bit," she grinned. "It's nice to lose control once in a while."

Clint fought off a grimace at the idea and instead sent her a weak smile and nodded. She took another long drink from her cup and then started bouncing excitedly when the song changed to something upbeat and pop-y.

"Oh, I love this song! Come dance with me!"

Clint didn't really have time to protest before she was grabbing him by the arm again and pulling him out of the room. The next room over was large with a huge flatscreen TV mounted on the wall and all the furniture pushed out of the way to make room for the plethora of thrashing bodies. Bobbi dragged him right into the middle of it and then whooped and threw her hands in the air. Clint awkwardly clutched at his soda as he was buffeted by bodies on every side.

"Come on, Clint, I know you can move! It's just like cheerleading, but a little less routine!" she shouted in his ear.

She grabbed his wrists and started twisting their bodies side to side in an awkward sway, and Clint started laughing. She grinned brightly at him and he grinned back and relaxed some more. It didn't take too long to really get into the music then, moving with the crush of bodies instead of awkwardly against it. There wasn't really room for anything more than swaying or grinding, but it was still fun, if not hot and sweaty.

The jacket was killing him, and after about an hour he needed to stop or risk passing out from heat stroke. Bobbi was very pleasantly drunk by that point. Her two drinks had clearly been much more vodka than orange juice. Despite this, she mimed drinking at him and then pointed toward the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. His soda can had long since randomly disappeared from his hand, and his throat was kinda dry, so he nodded and let her lead the way back into the kitchen.

Clint's ears almost rang with the relative silence of the kitchen. A few people were crowded around laughing and drinking, but the difference was definitely striking. He grabbed a cup and filled it up in the sink, downing the whole thing in about three seconds before refilling it again.

He stripped off his jacket and threw it over one of the stools at the breakfast bar, hoping it would still be there when he came back for it later. Bobbi had gotten herself another vodka and orange juice, but she seemed to be nursing this one rather than chugging it.

"Come on, let's go look for the others," she urged. Clint wanted to protest and stay in the kitchen for a few minutes and revel in his own personal space, but Bobbi wasn't actually asking.

She towed him off again by the arm, in the opposite direction of the dancing. She picked a door just outside the kitchen, which revealed a set of carpeted stairs leading to a basement. Clint followed her down and was surprised to find how empty it was down there.

The whole room smelled like weed, beer, and burning coal, but no one else seemed to notice or mind. There was an epic game of beer pong going on in the corner between a team of Natasha and Bucky and two guys that Clint didn't know. Tony and Steve were watching, obviously having lost the last round by the way Tony was bitching.

There was a group of people piled onto a tan leather couch in the corner, passing around a joint or smoking shisha from an elaborate hookah that looked like a dragon. Another group of people, including Phil Coulson, were sitting in a circle and appeared to be playing spin the bottle. Phil didn't look particularly happy about it, but his friend, a perky cheerleader named Skye, was sitting next to him and had her arm looped through his, so he was clearly there under duress.

"Oh, let's go play!" Bobbi grinned, and again Clint was just dragged along for the ride. She pushed him down to sit on the floor right next to Phil before going to wiggle her way in between Jess and Jan on the other side of the circle, a little to the left of being directly in front of Clint.

"Hey!" some drunk guy was yelling, brandishing a can of beer out in front of him. "Someone shotgun this! I dare someone to shotgun this!" A few people glanced at him, but no one jumped up to take his challenge.

"Okay, Clint, you go!" Jan encouraged from across the circle, grinning at him.

"I'll do it!" Phil said quickly, suddenly enough to startle Clint.

He glanced at Phil and then realized that he was talking about the beer, not spinning the bottle. Everyone was suddenly more interested in Phil pressing his thumb hard into the aluminum towards the base of the can. Clint was actually kind of impressed by how quickly and easily he punctured it, and he tried not to be too obvious about staring at the way Phil's mouth sealed around the hole he'd made. He popped the tab on the can and the guy who had called for the shotgun in the first place cheered loudly, which made several other people cheer.

Phil had the beer down in less than fifteen seconds, and then the room really went crazy, and the people closest to him slapped him on the back. Clint did not. He knew it wouldn't be welcome, and he didn't want to risk anything that would get rid of the slightly embarrassed grin that Phil was sporting.

"Another one, man!" the guy said, offering another can. Clint had no idea where he was getting them from.

"No," Phil said, shaking his head, and immediately the whole group started to protest.

It got the attention of Steve and Tony, which meant that Phil had no chance at all. Tony's grin went shark-like, and yelled,

"Shotgun it, Coulson! My house, my rules, and I say you've gotta do it!"

Phil rolled his eyes but held out his hand for the next can. "Fine, but just this one more. I do have to drive home tonight, you know."

He drove his thumb through the aluminum and downed the beer in another few seconds before chucking the can at Tony. It wasn't actually heavy enough to make it across the room, but Clint thought it made it's point just fine.

"You're awesome, Coulson!" the random guy crowed, and then headed off upstairs, presumably to get more people to shotgun.

"Well, that was an interesting interlude. Coulson could probably beat us all in a drinking contest. But now it's time for Clint to spin the bottle!"

Jan seemed really invested in Clint being the one to spin, so he shrugged and gave the bottle a twirl. It didn't spin very well on the beige carpet, but it did enough and landed, very awkwardly, on Bobbi.

She grinned at him and winked saucily, and he barked out a laugh, glad that she was a good friend and not a complete stranger. It would be weird, but not too bad. She crawled across the circle towards him and almost launched herself at him when she got there.

The movement knocked him over onto his back and their faces bumped a bit painfully but Bobbi didn't seem to care. Her hair fell in a curtain around them and she kissed him like she meant it. She was a good kisser, though a little sloppy due to her being drunk.

Clint wasn't really feeling it, though, and after the required minute he pushed her away from him gently. She sat back, looking confused and disappointed, and Clint felt a sinking in his gut. Kate had said that she liked him, but he hadn't actually believed it. Now he felt like the worst kind of asshole.

The rest of the group was quiet and staring at them awkwardly.

"What?" Clint demanded, willing himself not to blush.

"Man, Phil just flew out of here like he was on _fire_," Luke said, nodding towards the doorway. "I think someone has a crush on Bobbi."

That hurt like a physical blow, but suddenly Phil's dislike for him made more sense. If Bobbi had what was apparently an obvious crush on him, and Phil liked Bobbi, it was no wonder that Phil didn't even want to be in the same room with him.

"Can I talk to you?" Bobbi asked him, looking suddenly more sober. "Alone?" She was still half sprawled in his lap, and Clint could do nothing else but nod.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure." They got up and walked out to a chorus of wolf whistles and "yeah, get it!"s but Clint knew that was the exact opposite of the conversation they were about to have.

He followed her all the way up to the second floor and into an empty bedroom that was very clearly a guest room. Bobbi closed the door behind them and then, much to Clint's surprise, pushed him against the wall and kissed him. She pulled away again before he could decide what to do.

"Did that do anything for you at all?" she asked, looking at him imploringly. Clint prayed for the floor to swallow him, but it didn't.

"I...jeez, Bobbi. You're awesome, and you're a good kisser, but. I don't know. I don't feel anything. I wish I could. You're beautiful and fun...but I just don't." He fumbled with his answer, hoping he wasn't about to get slapped or lose a friend.

Bobbi didn't try to hit him, though. She looked disappointed, but she stepped out of his space and nodded.

"You really do have a huge crush on Phil, don't you?" she asked. "Natasha said so, but I thought maybe she was wrong. But she wasn't, was she?"

"No," Clint said, hating the way he blushed. "No, she wasn't wrong. I'm really sorry, Bobbi."

Bobbi sighed and then smiled at him, though she still looked sad. "Don't be. It's not your fault. You're a good guy, Clint. I hope Phil will see that one day."

Clint shrugged it off, his blush growing in intensity. "I'm still sorry. But I mean...apparently Phil has a crush on you. You could try asking him out, if you're interested."

Bobbi wrinkled her nose and shrugged, looking down at the carpet.

"I don't think so. Phil's nice, but it would be too weird. We've known each other for way too long, and I've never thought of him as more than a friend." Despite Clint's jealousy, he felt a pang of sadness on Phil's behalf. It was hard to like someone who didn't like you in the same way. Or at all.

"Besides," she said, looking up at him with a small smile. "I don't think Phil really has a crush on me. We've never been like that."

"He could," Clint shrugged. "You don't know."

"I don't," she agreed. "But I'm still pretty confident that he doesn't. Anyway. I'm sorry for coming on to you. I hope it doesn't make anything awkward, and that we can still be friends."

"Jeez, Bobbi, of course we can still be friends." Clint ran his hands through his hair because he didn't know what else to do with them. "I'm sorry I can't give you what you want."

"It's okay," she said. "But I'm gonna go drink some more. Seems fitting, after being rejected."

Clint laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, okay. Be careful, though."

"I will. Are you coming?"

Clint glanced around the quiet room, mostly empty except for a chest of drawers and a large four poster bed made up with cream-colored bedding. It was quiet and dark in here, and that combination seemed very appealing suddenly.

"I think I'm gonna stay here for a few minutes," he said, going to sit on the edge of the bed. "Take a few minutes away from the billions of people down there."

"Yeah, it is a little over the top," Bobbi agreed. "I'll see you later?"

"Yeah." Clint smiled at her in what he hoped was an assuring manner, and she smiled back at him before leaving the room, closing the door behind her. Clint let out a sigh and fell onto his back on the soft mattress.

He'd finally figured out why Phil didn't like him, and he wasn't interested in Bobbi, so it should all work out. He should be able to convince Phil he wasn't trying to get in between him and Bobbi, and maybe they could be friends. The thought should have been a relief, but Clint still felt shitty about it, and he couldn't even pretend that he didn't know why.

He liked Phil. Apparently, that wasn't much of a secret. He'd told himself that he was trying to befriend Phil to make both of their lives easier, and because he could handle just being Phil's friend, but he knew that was kind of bullshit. In the back of his mind, he'd held on hope that maybe, if they were friends, one day Phil would realize that he wanted to date Clint.

Was it fucked up and awful? Yeah, probably. But he'd still thought, in his fantasies where everything worked out the way he wanted it to all the time, that maybe it could happen one day. That maybe his stupid crush wasn't completely hopeless. But it very clearly was, and he was just going to have to live with it.

If he couldn't date Phil, he still wanted to try to be his friend, even if it would be awkward and painful. He was going to have to get over his crush and move along with his life. But that was a lot easier said than done.

Clint was interrupted from his thoughts by the door opening and the object of his thoughts stopping short in the doorway. Clint sat up quickly, looking at him uncertainly. What could have possibly brought him up to the exact room that Clint was in, out of all the rooms in the house?

"Oh," Phil said when he saw Clint, and Clint tried not flinch at his tone. "Bobbi asked me to grab her jacket. She said it was in here."

"Um, I don't think so," Clint said, looking around the painfully empty room. "I mean, I can help you look…"

"No," Phil said, stepping into the room and glancing around the floor as if he thought the jacket might appear. "I can do it. Go back to...whatever you were doing."

He took another few steps, and then there was a flash of long blonde hair in the hall and the door was slamming shut. Phil spun around, startled, and then approached the door to try the handle. The handle turned, but the door didn't budge, and Clint could only assume that it had been pinned shut by something like a chair on the other side.

"Damn it, Bobbi," Phil grumbled, kicking the door in frustration. He turned his glare on Clint, who raised his hands in the air in front of him.

"Hey, man, don't look at me. I did not plan this." Phil seemed to believe him, but he still looked pissed off. "But um. Since we're apparently stuck here until Bobbi gets sick of whatever game she's playing, I think we should talk."

"I'm really not in the mood, Barton." Phil rubbed the palm of his hand over his face and then slid down the door to sit on the carpet in front of it. He looked tired and seven kinds of annoyed.

"Just one thing real quick, okay? I just want you to know that I'm not interested in Bobbi like that. We're just friends."

Phil stared at him for a long moment, his eyebrows raising slowly, and then tilted his head as if to say, _'okay, and?'_

"Well. I mean. I just wanted you to know that. Bobbi and I aren't dating, and we're not going to date. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Phil said, leaning his head back against the door. "Good to know, I guess."

"I just wanted you to know…"

"Barton, I am really not in the mood for whatever weird game you're playing right now," Phil cut him off. "I'm exhausted and I've got a huge headache and I just want to go home and go to sleep, except I'm locked in a room with you."

"Oh," Clint said, wishing Phil's words didn't hurt as much as they did. He had every right to not be in a good mood, after all. Still, he had been hoping that clearing up this thing about Bobbi would make Phil a little more amenable to him. "Well...I mean, you could lay down on the bed. I'll be quiet, and you can sleep. I mean, we could try texting someone, but I don't know if anyone will come to our rescue. They might be in on it."

Phil looked at him suspiciously, and Clint stood up, distancing himself from the bed. He chose instead to sink into a corner of the room, the plush carpet surprisingly comfortable underneath him.

He wanted nothing more than to take the opportunity that Bobbi had given him and try to get through to Phil, but forcing the issue wouldn't help. He had to play by Phil's rules or he would never get anywhere.

"Go ahead, get some sleep," Clint encouraged instead. "I'll text Tasha, and hopefully she'll check her phone at some point and come let us out. But if your head hurts, you might as well take advantage of the bed and the quiet."

Phil looked, for a moment, like he was going to stubbornly argue. He even got as far as opening his mouth, but after a moment he glanced at the bed, and his shoulders slumped.

"Yeah, okay," he agreed. "Might as well. Bobbi's probably so drunk that she's going to forget about us anyway, so we'll probably be stuck here for a while. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Clint said, trying not to look too pleased with himself. "I'll wake you up if anyone comes."

Phil nodded to show that he'd heard, but he didn't speak at all. He must have been more tired than he looked. He kicked off his shoes and climbed into the big bed, curling up under the thick comforter on his side. He looked small in the bed, and Clint desperately wanted to climb in next to him, wrap around him, and kiss him in the dark. But that wasn't going to happen, and imagining it in vivid detail wasn't going to change that. He forced himself to pay attention to his phone instead and sent Tasha an SOS text.

Phil started snoring quietly after a few minutes, and Clint knew he was gone when he just thought that it was cute instead of off-putting. After another hour of losing horribly at 2048 and listening for someone approaching in the hall, his phone battery died and he was left sitting in the dark by himself.

He leaned his head against the wall and looked at the bed where he hadn't dared to before. There was barely enough light filtering in from the window for Clint to see the lump of Phil's form on the bed, and he was thankful for that. Seeing Phil sleeping and peaceful probably would have been too much for him.

He barely lasted another twenty minutes before he fell asleep too.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, Barton. Barton, wake up."

Clint opened his eyes and immediately shut them again when bright white light flooded his retinas. He let out a groan and turned his face away from the red tint he could see filtering through his eyelids.

"Barton, seriously. It's like ten in the morning and we're still locked in here." Clint groaned and sat up straight, popping his back and stretching out his neck. Finally, he focused on Phil, who looked both adorably sleep rumpled and annoyed at the same time.

"Did you try calling anyone else?" Clint asked, clearing his throat harshly when his voice came out raspy. "My phone is dead."

"Mine is in my coat downstairs somewhere," Phil said, like it was a stupid question. "That's why I didn't bother trying to call anyone last night."

"Well," Clint said, trying not to get annoyed at his tone. "The party is over and it's quieter now. Maybe if we yell, someone will hear us and come let us out."

Phil gave him a long-suffering look, but nodded anyway. He left Clint sitting in the corner and started pounding his fist on the door.

"Hey, can anyone hear me?" he yelled. "Tony? Bobbi?"

"You don't think they're all still hungover and passed out, do you?" Clint asked after a few minutes with no response.

"I don't know," Phil sighed. "Maybe. I didn't even want to come to this stupid party. My mom's gonna be so pissed at me. I was supposed to be home by one."

"Well, I mean…" Clint started and then paused when Phil turned to look at him.

He didn't look with malice or anything, but Clint was pretty sure it was the first time that Phil had actually looked him full in the face instead of vaguely to the left or right like Clint's face was offensive to him. After a moment he realized that Phil was waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"I could go with you and tell your mom what happened. I mean, she doesn't know me, but it couldn't hurt, right?"

Phil didn't look so sure of that. "I don't know. I mean, maybe. But she'll probably just think you're lying for me. Anyway, won't Mr. Fury be mad that you stayed out all night?"

"Nah," Clint shrugged. "He told me if I was drinking to just stay here. So he'll assume I was drunk and he won't ask me about it."

"Mr. Fury lets you drink?" Phil asked. He looked like Clint had just told him that the moon was made of cheese. "I don't believe that."

"Well, he said that he wasn't stupid and knew that if I wanted to, I would. So he just told me to be safe and to not tell him about it if I did. But anyway, I don't drink."

"Why not?" Phil asked, and he looked just as perplexed by that as he did by the idea that Nick would let him drink at all. His curious face was really cute, all furrowed eyebrows and slightly narrowed eyes, his head tilted just a bit to the side.

"My dad was a mean drunk." Clint hadn't consciously decided to tell the truth, but he figured now that he had started, he might as well tell the whole truth. "He was drunk the night he drove himself and my mother into a tree and killed them both."

"Oh," Phil said, in that way that Clint was familiar with. It was the way people sounded when they didn't know what to say, and they regretted bringing it up. It was always quickly followed by, "I'm sorry," and Phil did not disappoint.

"It's all right," Clint shrugged. "My dad wasn't a nice person. It was kind of a relief, really. My mom. Well. She's probably better off. And I found a new home at the circus, and now here. It all worked out."

"So you were really in the circus?" Phil asked. For moment, his eyes shone, like he was fascinated, and Clint felt hope flare up in his chest. Maybe it _had_ all been about Bobbi. Maybe now things would be okay between them.

"Yeah," Clint said, grinning ruefully. "My brother and I ran away from the orphanage when I was eight and he was twelve. They took us in at Carson's, and as long as we could work, we had a place to eat and sleep. The work was hard, but it wasn't so bad. Barney, my brother, he didn't end up liking it. Not as glamorous as he'd imagined, I guess. He left when he was sixteen, and I haven't seen him since."

He didn't know why he was suddenly having family share and care hour with a guy who barely tolerated him. Phil had been so out of reach, before. Now that he was close enough, Clint wanted to grab him and never let go. If that took letting down his walls and being more liberal about sharing his past, he was willing to do it.

"Wow," Phil breathed. "That's...that's a lot for being so young."

"Yeah, I guess," Clint offered, shrugging.

He wanted Phil to tell Clint more about him. About his family and all his favorites and what he thought about at night right before he fell asleep. He was so obsessed with Phil Coulson; he wanted to know everything. And he wanted Phil to tell him.

He didn't really understand what it was about him that made Clint so desperate. With anyone else, he would have given up weeks ago and reverted to being stand-offish and bitchy to him. There definitely would have been none of this crush nonsense. He didn't know why Phil was so special. He just was.

He opened his mouth to ask about Phil, and maybe, hopefully, get some sort of friendship going, but he was interrupted by a scraping sound, and then the door came open and Tony and Steve peeked in at them.

"Uh, hey guys," Steve said, looking at them with a mixture of surprise and confusion warring over his face.

"Holy shit, did you two fuck in my guest room?" Tony demanded.

"No!" Phil sputtered, taking a few steps back like he thought putting distance between them might erase any questions on his sexuality. "God, Tony, don't be a dick."

"I mean, it's a reasonable question. The door's locked, the bed is rumpled…"

"The door was locked from the outside, genius," Phil spat. "And I'm not gay, okay?"

"I slept on the floor," Clint offered, trying to be helpful, but Phil just glared at him. "Bobbi locked us in here last night."

"Yeah, we were wondering where you got to," Steve said, trying to diffuse Phil's obvious anger. "Why didn't you call anyone?"

"I texted Nat," Clint explained. "And then my phone died, and Phil didn't have his."

"Oh yeah, Natasha and Bucky are still passed out in one of the other bedrooms," Steve said thoughtfully. "Good thing we found you."

"Yeah," Phil agreed shortly. "I've got to go, my mom's going to be pissed."

"Hey did you want me to…" Clint started to offer, but Phil cut him off quickly.

"No, I don't need your help. I know how to talk to my mother."

Clint tried not to take it as a subtle stab that he didn't know how to talk to any mother. Phil probably hadn't meant it that way. He couldn't be that cruel.

"Okay. I'll see you at school, then," he called that to Phil's back as he left the room.

Phil didn't answer him. Clint tried not to let his disappointment show, but judging by the kicked puppy look on Steve's face, he hadn't really succeeded. They were awkwardly quiet for a moment, except for Tony, who was babbling on about why he didn't understand why Phil had to be such a dick, it was just a _joke_, god.

"Do you want a ride home?" Steve asked, and Clint had never been more grateful for any offer ever. Suddenly he just wanted to be alone in his room.

"Yeah," he said, pulling himself to his feet. "Thanks. I've just gotta find my jacket."

Downstairs, the house was a complete and total wreck. Partially-filled red solo cups covered every flat surface, glitter and confetti from god-knew-where littered the floor, and every once in a while they'd come by a person who had apparently dropped to the floor where they stood and simply passed out.

His jacket was still draped over the kitchen stool where he'd left it, but someone had spilled something on it and it reeked of booze.

"Should we stay for a while and help Tony clean up?" Clint asked, lookingat the empty bottles scattered across the countertop and the shattered glass on the floor where one had rolled off and smashed against the tile.

"Nah," Steve said with a smile. "A service will be around soon to clean it all up. It's all a bit much, I know, but I have to admit I really wouldn't enjoy trying to clean up this mess."

He looked a little ashamed of himself, and Clint kind of understood the feeling. Even if he was being paid for it, cleaning up a mess this daunting would be completely awful.

"So," Steve asked when they were in his car, an old but neat blue Saturn, "was there something happening with you and Phil in there? If you don't want to talk about it, it's cool. But I mean…"

"It's really obvious that I have a crush on him?" Clint asked drily, and Steve nodded with sheepish smile. "Nothing was happening, except that he was actually talking to me like I wasn't pond scum for the first time, like, ever. I mean, you heard him. He's not gay. He'd never...he wouldn't be interested even if I did actually try something." Clint tried not to feel too down about that.

"Oh, well," Steve said, frowning a bit. "I'm sorry we interrupted. I'm sure Tony didn't help. He's a good guy, if you really look for it, but he's not got much in the way of tact, unfortunately."

Clint snorted and grinned at Steve. "Yeah, I know. And don't worry about it. I think Phil's just ashamed to be seen talking to the poor white-trash carnie. I shouldn't even like him. I don't know why I do."

"Don't be like that, Clint," Steve chided, glancing at him sternly before focusing his eyes on the road again. "You're not trash, and Phil certainly would never say you were."

The worst part was that Clint knew he was right, or at least the part about Phil was. He really was a good, nice guy. He just didn't like Clint.

"Well, it's something about me," Clint argued, and Steve didn't try to correct him.

It was obvious that Phil had a personal problem with Clint and everyone who had ever seen them together knew it. Clint just wished he knew what it was so he could change it. They were quiet for the rest of the ride, only speaking when Clint thanked him in front of his house.

He went inside, stopping only to inform Nick that he was home, before heading up to his room so he could try to hide from his problems.

* * *

><p>If Clint had had any hope that his momentary truce with Phil on Saturday morning would lead to friendly interaction when they next saw each other, he was sorely disappointed. On Monday, he'd waved at Phil in the hallway before fourth period and Phil had stared straight through him as if he didn't exist. Clint might have thought it was simply a mistake if Phil hadn't then proceeded to continue to ignore him all through lunch and bio. All week long.<p>

At first, Clint had just let it go. Phil had made it clear that they weren't friends before, and Tony's obnoxious comment clearly hadn't helped. But after a full week of minimal responses to legitimate questions and actually witnessing Phil turn around and head in the opposite direction down a hallway if he saw Clint coming, Clint was fed up.

If Phil wanted to be a tool, then fine. Clint didn't need him. He'd done everything he could think of, short of handcuffing them together and forcing Phil to get along with him. There was nothing more that he could do, and he deserved better than being treated like shit anyway.

Or at least, that's what Kate said. He was even starting to believe she was right. He wouldn't throw himself through the ringer like this for anyone else, and Phil Coulson didn't deserve Clint's devotion, so Clint would no longer give it.

Or at least, that was the plan. He'd only truly made that decision about three hours ago, and now it was game time and he had to spend at least an hour and a half trying to focus on cheering and not Phil's general attractiveness. A dick he may be, but he was still a very good-looking one.

"Hey, it's game time," Bobbi said nudging him with her elbow to snap him out of his thoughts. "You look sloppy, Barton." She grinned at him cheerfully and then reached back to tuck the tag of his black cheerleading shirt in. She then smoothed her hands over the purple chevron on the front with SHIELD written across it in big silver letters and nodded in satisfaction.

"Okay, now you're perfect. What about me?" Clint had been indescribably relieved when he realized that his rejection hadn't changed anything between them. Bobbi was a good friend, and he wasn't actually sure what he would do without her.

Clint looked over her uniform, exactly the same as his except that she wore a sleeveless top and a purple-lined black skirt rather than the short sleeves and plain black pants that he wore. He straightened the large purple bow that she'd fastened around her curled blonde ponytail and then shot her a double thumbs up.

"Looking good," he told her, putting on his best cheesy voice.

She rolled her eyes at him good naturedly, and then nudged him towards the sidelines.

"Better get ready, Natasha wants us to line up."

She snatched a set of black and purple poms from what was left of the pile on the floor and went over to join the line that led to the door the team would come through. Clint grabbed the last large plastic megaphone from the sideline and jogged over to join the rest of the squad, taking up his position at the end of the line, next to Danny and across from Luke.

The game announcer started introducing the other team while the school band started up with the Imperial March from Star Wars, and Clint tried to get his head in the game. It was just like putting on a show at Carson's. He needed to be in a certain headspace, and he just wasn't quite there yet.

"And nooooooow!" the announcer called dramatically. "Please put your hands together for our very own SHIELD ACADEMY EAGLES!"

The band struck up a version of Ozzy's Crazy Train, and the squad started cheering on cue, the girls rubbing their poms together in front of them to create more noise. Clint and the rest of the guys beat their palms against the sides of their megaphones. The team, lead by Steve, burst dramatically through the doors and jogged through the gauntlet of cheerleaders, to loud cheers and screams from the audience.

"Starting we have Captain Steve Rogers!" the announcer trilled, and the cheering got louder.

"All right, Cap!" Clint yelled encouragingly, as Steve stepped on to the court.

"Next up is Phil Coulson!"

As the announcer listed their starters, the team made a show of slapping each other on the back and generally being rowdy and pumped for the game. Clint and the rest of the cheerleaders moved to stand on the sidelines, half of them in front of the parents' bleachers and half of them in front of the students.

It was, in all reality, Clint's least favorite part of being a cheerleader, but he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one. It was mostly just a lot of chanting and cheering and encouraging the crowd to do the same (called "attacking the crowd") and nothing really physical.

The whole gym went quiet for tip-off, but at the blast of the whistle, the roar started up again. Thor managed to smack the ball to Tony, who passed to Phil, and the game was on. As per usual, the crowd got less enthusiastic after the first five or so minutes, and the cheerleaders started trying to get them to be loud again.

Clint took initiative for the first lull, beating his palm against the side of his megaphone three times and throwing out a generic cheer. The rest followed his lead, and after a few THUMP-THUMP-THUMP "S! A!"s, the crowd joined in.

Of course, as soon as they got up a good level of noise, Steve missed a shot, Bucky lost the rebound, and the Rensselaer Knights took possession of the ball. It didn't take long to switch to "de! fense!" in their cheer, but the crowd was a little lackluster in their cheering due to disappointment, particularly when the Knights made a three-pointer.

For the next ten minutes, SHIELD made exactly zero baskets while the Knights racked up their side of the scoreboard to fifteen points. Clint could practically see the rabid foam building up around Coach Blake's mouth from his rage, and it wasn't even a minute before he called for a time out.

A few pre-selected students made their way onto the court so they could try their hand at winning some free movie passes by racing each other across the gym floor by bouncing on inflatable horses. It was a ridiculous kind of spectacle, but it was fun, and it gave Clint the opportunity to do something other than 'woo'.

While the people raced each other on the horses, Clint, Danny, Skye, and Darcy did a series of backflips down the length of the court in between them. It was enough to get Clint's blood singing, and after the winner received her due applause and the movie vouchers, the game started back up and the little bit of activity had Clint prepared to get through until halftime when they would be able to do fun stuff.

By the time half time had rolled around, the game hadn't gotten any better and the crowd had lost any enthusiasm that they might have had. The team looked tired and frustrated, and Clint felt bad for them, but now it was his time to perform, so he tried not to think about it.

They took their places, with most of them in the corners of the court and Jan, Skye, and Kate standing in a row facing them. The music started, some remixed pumped up mish-mash of songs, and Clint felt the same as he had when the lights had come up in the big top and he'd been standing there with his bow. It was time to put on a show.

Jan, Skye, and Kate started them off with a synchronized double back tuck, and they hadn't even stuck their landings before Darcy and Bobbi were doing single back tucks across the length of the court, followed closely by Natasha coming from one corner and Luke from the other, flipping neatly past each other. It was Clint and Danny's turn then, and they pulled the same move that Natasha and Luke had done, lining up with the people who had already flipped opposite each other.

Clint tried to drown out the sounds of the audience so he wouldn't lose focus. It was an art he'd perfected at the circus, and he mostly focused on the sounds of blood rushing in his ears and making sure to be where he was supposed to be and execute all his tricks in the same way that they had practised a hundred times.

Clint was sweating a bit by the time he hoisted Natasha up in their with Danny and carefully rotated them in a circle while Natasha posed above them. The fliers dismounted from their perches with a showy spin, and Clint was aware that they had caught Natasha a bit roughly by the way she huffed a breath when she landed.

He winced apologetically at her, but she didn't acknowledge it, bouncing to her feet and moving into their next position. They stood together in a group and all did a single back tuck in unison, which was a lot harder than it looked. Some days they didn't manage to pull it off without someone landing on someone else's toes. They managed it though, and quickly moved back into flying position so they could hoist the girls up again and have them wave at the crowd and clap. The crowd loved that, of course, and clapped and screamed, and Clint knew his show grin stretched into a genuine one.

By the time they completed their last trick, a three-tier pyramid with Jan pulling a scorpion at the top, the crowd was roaring, and Clint had to assume that they had all done the routine right, or at least right enough that crowd didn't notice it was wrong. They all held their final pose for another few seconds before letting the fliers dismount and bouncing off the court to take a small break before the second half started.

"That was great, you guys!" Coach Hand called encouragingly from the sidelines, but she didn't bother to look up from her novel when she said so. It was no secret that Natasha was the brains of the operation, but technically Coach Hand was required to be at the games, even if she didn't bother to watch any of the goings-on.

"It was _all right_," Natasha told them sharply, but Coach Hand didn't seem to notice or care. "You almost didn't make that last lift, Kate. Clint, Danny, that catch was really rough. Luke, I saw you land awkwardly on your first tuck, is your ankle okay?"

Clint was in awe of Natasha's ability to make him feel properly chastised without even really focusing much attention on him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Luke said with a grin. "I just had a clumsy moment."

"Good," Natasha said, looking relieved. "We're too close to Nationals for anyone to break anything now. As for this game, well. It looks like SHIELD might not make it past the first round of the semi-finals. They're playing pretty terribly tonight. But it's our job to keep up the morale, even when it's being murdered right in front of our eyes."

"Don't be like that, they could catch up," Darcy offered optimistically. The Knights were ahead by about forty points. It wasn't impossible that SHIELD could catch up, but it was very unlikely.

"I mean, Coach Blake might actually be murdering them all in the locker room right now, so this game could be over sooner than we think," Sam added, casting a suspicious look at the door the team had left through at the beginning of half time.

"He's definitely ripping them a new one at least," Skye agreed, tightening her ponytail and straightening her bow. "I swear he was actually foaming at the mouth."

"I don't think I've ever seen them play so badly before," Kate said. "Like, really, Phil has lost the ball like fifteen times and Cap is shooting like he's never held a basketball before."

"It's gotta be nerves," Luke insisted , stretching his arms up and behind his head. "It's the first round of the semi-finals, after all. If they win this one and the next, they go to State at the end of May. It's nerve-wracking."

"Yeah, but if they want to win they've got to get it under control," Natasha sniffed. "James will be very upset if they lose now due to nerves."

Clint wasn't that surprised that Natasha's dismissive attitude was covering up her worry about how Bucky would take the loss. The team filed back into the room, all looking grim but fiercely determined, and the cheerleaders headed back to their places on the sidelines, ready to see the game through to the end, win or lose.

* * *

><p>By some miracle, the best player on the other team got injured and pulled out of the game five minutes into the second half. His team fell apart without their best player to depend on, and SHIELD managed to win. Clint didn't think he was the only one who was shocked by that turn of events, and if the look on Coach's face was anything to judge by, the basketball team would be practicing harder than they ever had before in order to make up for their embarrassing first half.<p>

For now, though, the team was celebrating, slapping each other on the backs and hollering like mad men. If they won the next game they'd be in the finals.

"God, that was a nerve-wracking game, wasn't it?" Kate grumbled, twirling her long ponytail around the tip of her fingers to settle her curls together. "I really thought we were gonna lose."

"We all thought we were gonna lose," Luke laughed, clearly still adrenaline-filled, if the way he was bouncing on his toes was any judge. "The other team _really_ thought we were gonna lose, and they don't look so happy right now, do they?"

The other team did not, in fact, look happy at all. They were stone-faced as they went through the line and slapped the Shield team's hands, and Clint imagined it would be really disappointing to get so far, come so close to winning, and suddenly lose at the last minute.

"Well, guys, you didn't completely embarrass me out there," Natasha sighed dramatically, seemingly unconcerned about the outcome of the game. "So you're all free to go shower and change. We're having an extra practice on Sunday at two, don't forget." She yelled the last part at their backs, because they were already heading off to the locker room, chattering happily at each other.

"So, can we do Denny's tonight?" Bobbi asked as they headed down the hall. "I might actually murder someone for a milkshake."

"Ooh, yeah, cheese fries!" Sam said, his voice sounding vaguely dreamy at the thought.

There was a general assent that they should definitely go to Denny's, and they split off to go into their own locker rooms with the promise that Danny would ask the basketball team if they wanted to go.

Clint stripped out of his sweaty uniform, grabbed his towel from his locker, and headed straight for a shower stall. He didn't have any actual toiletries, but the hot water against his abused muscles felt amazing and he groaned loudly before he could stop himself.

That, of course, led to a lot of raucous laughter from all the guys in the locker room, and very thorough ribbing about masturbating in public showers. Clint took it all good naturedly, yelling back insults over the thrum of water when he didn't have his face directly under the spray.

He stayed in longer than he should have, considering that there were people waiting for him, but he knew the girls tended to take longer in the locker room and therefore wasn't too worried to find that most everyone else had already left when he finally got out.

In fact, the only person who was still in the locker room was Phil Coulson, whose locker happened to be in the same aisle as Clint's, though on the other side of the wooden bench that ran down the middle.

Clint wasn't really sure what to do or say. He was determined to still be civil, even if he was tired of being treated like he was nothing. But civility didn't require small talk, so he just went to his locker and got dressed, determinedly not looking at Phil and trying very hard not to think about him either. He stuffed his uniform into his bag so he could wash it at home and tossed the bag over his shoulder.

Phil was shirtless when Clint turned around, and it took a lot of energy not to stare at the light dusting of freckles along his shoulders. He forced himself to look anywhere else and offered a "good game" as he turned to go. Phil didn't even acknowledge that he'd spoken, and for some reason that Clint couldn't fathom, it was that that finally put him over the edge.

"Hey," he snapped, dropping his duffel bag to the ground and grabbing Phil by the shoulder to force him around. Phil looked surprised more than angry, his eyes wide and his mouth open in a little 'o'. Clint didn't let it distract him and instead demanded, "What the fuck is your problem with me?"

"I...I don't…" Phil stuttered, trying ineffectually to shake Clint's hand of his shoulder.

"Look, it's clear you don't like me. We don't have to be friends, if you don't want. You don't have to like me or hang out with me, or anything, but I don't think it's too much to ask that you deign to acknowledge that I've spoken to you."

Phil's mouth snapped shut, and then he opened it again, but Clint didn't let him speak. He wanted an apology, yeah, but he wanted to vent his own anger first.

"I'm sorry for whatever I did to offend you, if it was daring to be below your standards in your presence or whatever, but whatever your problem is, it's not mine. I'm sorry you don't like me, but you don't have to be a complete and total dick about it, okay?"

Phil didn't answer. He stared at Clint in silence for a long moment, his eyes still wide, but he didn't look sorry or even try to offer any sort of apology. Clint rolled his eyes in frustration. It was obvious he wasn't even going to get a modicum of respect. He didn't even know why he'd bothered.

He let go of Phil's shoulder, suddenly aware that he was squeezing it quite tightly. He didn't apologize for it. Instead, he turned on his heel and leaned down to snatch his bag from the floor. Before he could stalk righteously out of the room, though, Phil spoke, his voice quiet and hoarse.

"Wait."

Clint paused for a moment, turning back to look incredulously at Phil. He wanted to demand to know why he should bother waiting at all, but he didn't. An apology wouldn't actually fix anything, but it would make him feel a bit vindicated. If Phil was going to offer one, Clint wanted to hear it.

"I don't hate you," Phil said, and Clint couldn't keep back the snort of disbelief.

"You have a funny way of showing it."

"I didn't realize that I was being so rude," Phil rushed to explain, his fingers twisting around the one of his belt loops. "It's just...I didn't want anyone to know, so I thought if I didn't get close to you, no one would suspect. And I guess it worked, but too much."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Clint sighed, exhaustion tamping down on his will to fight.

"I don't hate you," Phil insisted again. "I like you. I really do. Too much."

"You like me so much that you treat me like shit and pretend I'm below your existence. I'm honored."

"I'm sorry I made you feel like I thought I was better than you." Phil looked pained at the idea. "I didn't know what else to do."

"Instead of what, Phil?" Clint demanded incredulously. Was the idea of people knowing he wanted to be Clint's friend so horrible? "Instead of being friendly to the white trash where people could see you?"

"You're not trash!" Phil snapped, his eyes flashing angrily. Even though he was mad at Phil, Clint couldn't deny how very attracted he was. "And I'm not embarrassed to be seen with you. I just didn't want anyone to notice..."

"To notice what?" Clint yelled, cutting him off, and Phil let out an angry noise and stalked towards him.

He grabbed Clint's t-shirt in his fist, and for a moment Clint thought he was definitely about to get his nose broken, but then Phil jerked him forward and pressed their mouths together harshly.

For a split second, Clint was very confused. After that second though, his anger melted away to be replaced by a feeling that he could only describe as _'hell fucking yes!'_ and he grabbed Phil's biceps and kissed him back.

Phil made a painful-sounding noise in the back of his throat, like a wounded animal that wasn't quite sure what to do, and Clint just hummed reassuringly at him and shifted his head to change the angle of their kiss.

Phil pretty obviously had never kissed anyone before, but he seemed really determined to do it well, mostly passively letting Clint kiss him and pressing back enthusiastically whenever he felt the confidence to do so.

The kisses were clumsy, but they were really sweet, and Clint adored them already. He was hoping he'd get the chance to experience them again, and to teach Phil how to kiss with more confidence. Before he could convince himself to pull away and ask Phil how he translated wanting to kiss him into acting like a total prick, the door to the locker room opened and Danny's voice called out to them.

"Hey, Clint, Phil, you guys ready or what?"

Phil pulled away from Clint like he'd been burned, his face white like chalk. He stumbled backwards a few steps, licking his lips, his eyes darting around like he suspected that someone had been watching them. He grabbed a t-shirt from his bag, yanking it over his head, and before Clint even realized what exactly was happening, he was gone, rushing out of the locker room with his head down and his shoulders hunched.

Clint let him go. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel, but there was a definitely a swell of disappointment building up inside him. He couldn't decide if it was better or worse than anger. He grabbed his bag from the floor and left the locker room only to be met with the inquisitive stares of his friends.

"What the hell?" Tony demanded. "Phil just rushed out of here like he'd seen a ghost."

"I don't know, man," Clint lied, hoping that the shrug he offered looked easy and unconcerned. "You know he doesn't talk to me."

"Are you sure?" Natasha asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "Because we were pretty sure we'd heard some yelling a few minutes ago."

Clint heaved a sigh. "Yeah, okay, we exchanged some words. I don't know if anything has changed though. Can we just go get some food? I'm starving." They reluctantly stopped asking questions when it became clear that Clint was not going to answer them. Even if he had been willing to answer, he wasn't really sure what he would have said. It was pretty obvious that Phil wasn't going to make any of this easy. Clint just had to decide if he was willing to put up with that.


	4. Chapter 4

The next afternoon, as Clint stood on Phil's front porch and rang the doorbell, he had to admit that he was willing to put up with a hell of a lot when it came to Phil, even though he wasn't entirely sure why.

The housekeeper answered the door and sent him up to Phil's room with some quick directions, and Clint suddenly wasn't so sure about his plan. He really needed to talk to Phil, but he didn't want him to feel threatened by Clint showing up at his bedroom door and catching him off guard.

He had intended for it to make Phil more comfortable, knowing that he had the home-field advantage, but standing outside of a plain white door with "Phillip" painted on it in blue and red letters, he wasn't so sure that his idea was going to pan out. He didn't know why he was so surprised. His ideas hardly ever did.

Still, he was there, and getting caught standing outside Phil's door and staring at the pencil-drawn height markings on the frame like some creepy stalker wasn't going to win him any points. He took a breath, rapped his knuckles against the door twice, and waited. It only took a few seconds for Phil to call for him to come in, but Clint only opened the door. He didn't want to cross into Phil's space without Phil knowing who he had actually invited.

"Hey," he said, and then winced when Phil's head whipped around so fast that he heard his neck crack. "I was hoping we could talk."

"Oh, um. Yeah. Come in."

Clint smiled gratefully and stepped into the room, pushing the door closed behind him to offer them some privacy. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds. The silence looming around them was almost deafening in its awkwardness. Clint shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and scuffed the toe of his shoe against the beige carpet, and Phil looked around his room frantically, like he was checking to make sure nothing embarrassing was lying around. Finally, Clint couldn't take it anymore, and he cleared his throat.

"So um. Last night."

"Yeah," Phil said.

"We kissed," Clint prompted, and Phil was suddenly right in front of him, pressing the palm of his hand tightly over Clint's mouth.

"Hey, keep it down," he hissed, his eyes darting to the door like he thought it might be recording their conversation. "No one knows that I'm...like this, okay?"

Suddenly it all clicked into place, and it was so simple that Clint couldn't believe he hadn't caught on to it before. Phil was closeted and terrified that someone would find out. Clint had never had to worry about coming out. There was never anyone who had told him that being gay might be considered wrong, so when he had gleefully told Olena and Alyosha about his first kiss with a townie boy behind the tiger cages, they had only smiled indulgently and teased him about becoming a man.

He hadn't realized until he was fourteen that some people didn't tolerate homosexuality, and by then he had been so secure in himself that it hadn't mattered to him. But for someone like Phil, who had been raised in a normal house with normal societal interactions his whole life, he supposed that sort of thing could be really daunting. He gently pulled Phil's hand away from his mouth and held it in his own. Phil didn't pull away, and Clint considered that a win.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice lowered. "I just want to be sure that you don't regret what we did, and that you were just worried because you thought someone might come in and see us?"

Phil nodded, looking miserable. "I liked it," he said. "It was...really, really nice. But I can't...people can't know that I'm like this. They can't."

Clint wasn't sure if Phil's parents were bigots or not, but he certainly knew that his friends weren't. Every one of them knew about Clint's massive crush on Phil, and they clearly weren't all that concerned about it. Still, if Phil didn't want anyone to know, it wasn't Clint's place to push him.

"Okay," he agreed, hoping his voice sounded soothing. "No one has to know until you're ready to tell them. And you don't even have to kiss me again, if you don't want to. I just wanted to make sure that we're okay."

Phil looked at him for a long minute, like maybe he didn't believe that it could be so easy, but whatever he saw in Clint's face seemed to convince him. He nodded and tightened his fingers around Clint's.

"Yeah, we're okay. I...I'd like to do what we did yesterday again. If that's okay."

"Yeah," Clint answered, a little too quickly, unable to keep his grin back. "Yeah, that's more than okay. We can do that in private, and no one at school has to know that you even talk to me." He was more than willing to give up a public friendship with Phil as long as Phil was willing to let him into his life privately.

"No." Phil spoke so quickly, Clint didn't even have time to get his feelings hurt. "I don't want to ignore you at school anymore. It sucked so much. We can be friends right? No one will know, if they see us together at school. About…" he trailed off, blushing. It was the cutest thing ever.

"Right," Clint was quick to reassure him. He was thrilled about being able to actually talk to Phil at lunch. "No one will know."

Phil smiled at him, halfway thankful and halfway pure relief, and Clint couldn't help but smile back. He reached out tentatively to rest one hand against Phil's neck, and Phil didn't grimace or pull away, so Clint leaned in and kissed him.

His mouth was slack for the first few kisses, and then he seemed to build up some confidence and he kissed back. Clint pushed closer into Phil's space, stroking his fingers against Phil's skin lightly, and Phil smiled, breaking their chaste kisses.

"What?" Clint asked, unable to keep himself from smiling as well.

"I've never done this before. I'm not very good at it," Phil said, but he didn't actually seem that bothered by it. His cheeks were delightfully pink with a blush, and his eyes were bright in a way Clint didn't think he'd ever seen before.

"That's okay," Clint assured him quickly. "You're not bad at it. And practice makes perfect."

He kissed Phil again, gently coaxing him to turn his head just slightly so their mouths fit together better. Phil made a small happy sighing noise and somewhat awkwardly grabbed at Clint's sides, eventually choosing to fist his hands into the material of Clint's t-shirt. Clint remembered the first time he'd kissed that townie boy, and how he'd been hyper aware of everything that he was doing. The placement of his hands had seemed really important.

"Just relax," he murmured to Phil in between kisses. "Just enjoy it, don't think so much."

"Kinda hard," Phil responded, but he was taking some initiative to press their mouths back together now, rather than just waiting for Clint to take the lead. "I just feel kinda stupid."

Clint pulled back farther, tilting his head back when Phil tried to kiss him again. "I don't want you to feel stupid or uncomfortable or anything, okay? If you don't want to do this…"

"I do!" Phil said quickly, his eyes widening and his grasp tightening on Clint's shirt. "I just don't want you to be...disappointed." He bit his lip and looked away, and it took everything Clint had not to laugh. He knew Phil wouldn't take it well.

"I'm not a jerk, Phil," he started, making a quiet shushing noise when it looked like Phil would protest. "I'm not going to laugh at you or be disappointed in your kissing skills. I just want to date you and help you learn along the way. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," Phil looked down at the beige carpet for a moment, and then flickered up to stare at the wall behind Clint. They finally flicked back over to look Clint in the face, and Phil gave him a hesitant smile. "That's great."

They stood there awkwardly in silence for a moment, and then Phil shook out his shoulders and relaxed his posture. "So now that we've awkwardly agreed to attempt secretly dating, why don't we actually talk to each other when I'm not being an asshole?"

Clint laughed loudly, glad at the sudden break of tension, and nodded. "Yeah, sure. That sounds awesome."

They moved to sit cross-legged on the bed, Clint kicking off his shoes so he wouldn't get the red and blue striped comforter messy. The royal blue color was the same as the color on the walls, except for one wall which had a large white star with a blue background, surrounded by red and white rings.

That wall was empty of decoration other than the paint itself, but the other ones were lined with band posters and signed basketball jerseys hung in frames. The tops of his bookshelf, desk, and dresser were all cluttered with various sports trophies and medals, but there were also toys still in their boxes among the little golden statuettes.

"So," Clint said, staring at the accent wall. "Captain America, huh?"

"Yeah," Phil said, his face going pink. "I know it's kinda dorky, but…"

"No," Clint interrupted him quickly. "It's cute. And that wall is awesome."

"Thanks." Phil blushed harder. "My dad did it for me when I was ten."

"I have a poster from my circus hanging in my room," Clint said, hoping it would make Phil feel less embarrassed. "The Zelinskis sent it to me, and I love it. Reminds me of home. It would be really cool if I could paint a circus scene or something in there. But I just did the walls purple, and I'm not that artistic anyway."

"Well, the poster is good," Phil agreed. "It's personal to your own circus. But if you really wanted to, you might be able to convince Steve to help you out."

"I don't know. He already helps me out enough in art class. I don't need to bother him anymore."

Phil hummed noncommittally and laced his fingers together in his lap. They were awkwardly quiet for a long moment, and then Phil tried to get a conversation going again.

"Who are the Zelinskis?" he asked, and Clint had to smile as he tried to describe Olena and Alyosha and his relationship with them. Mostly it just degenerated into him telling more and more wild stories about them and the crazy things they'd done just to get Phil to laugh.

From there the floodgates opened, and they talked about everything from their childhoods to their favorite cereals, sharing anecdotes and silly stories, slowly moving from their sat up positions to reclining on the bed face to face, their heads propped up on their arms.

Clint found out that Phil had a younger sister named Alice and that he was very close with his dad, who had introduced him to comic books at a young age and encouraged his idolization of Captain America. He also found out smaller things, like the fact that Phil hated nutella because hazelnuts grossed him out and that dragonfruit was his favorite fruit, but pears would do in a pinch. His favorite thing that he'd found out, however, was that Phil sighed softly when he was kissed, and that his fingers felt really nice when they stroked against the bare skin of Clint's lower back.

Clint stayed until six, when a knock on Phil's bedroom door had him and Phil springing apart from each other and sitting up on the bed. Clint wasn't sure that they managed not to look suspicious, but Phil's mom didn't say anything when she opened the door and saw them.

"Oh hello, I didn't know anyone else was here." She sounded puzzled, but nice and polite despite that. She smiled at him, and her blue eyes crinkled at the corners the same way that Phil's did. Clint decided that she was pleasantly pretty.

"Oh yeah," Clint said, leaning even farther back from Phil. "I just came by to ask Phil some school stuff and I guess we got distracted."

"Right," Phil agreed quickly, and when his mother's eyes narrowed and zeroed in on him, like she could sense his nerves, Clint cut in again.

"I'm Clint Barton, by the way."

"Oh, you're the boy who Nick Fury is fostering," she said, her suspicious look clearing up and her smile appearing again. "I've heard about you. Small town, you know. I'm Linda Coulson, Phil's mom."

"Nice to meet you."

"And you. We're just about to have dinner, if you wanted to stay."

Clint could tell that Phil was already having trouble holding his nerves together, and he didn't want to make it any worse, so he just shook his head. A lot had happened very quickly, and he figured that Phil would need time to process it all before he was able to function like a real person again.

"No, thank you, I should be getting home. I've got a paper for Spanish due on Monday that I should work on."

"Well, alright, then. It was nice meeting you. Phil, walk your friend to the door and then join us for dinner." Phil nodded silently, and his mom cast him another concerned look before she left the room.

"Sorry," Phil offered, though Clint wasn't really sure why he was apologizing. "I kind of freaked out there…"

"It's fine," Clint shrugged. "I'm really not bothered by it." He pulled his shoes back on and made sure that he had everything he came with before offering Phil a cheerful smile to show that he wasn't mad for whatever reason Phil thought he ought to have been mad about.

Phil, as instructed, walked him down the front door and, after a furtive glance around, kissed him quickly on the mouth. Clint couldn't help the grin that split his face, and it only got wider when Phil blushed and grinned back.

"Will I see you again this weekend?" he asked, and Clint frowned.

"I don't know. I do actually have a lot of homework, and Nat called an extra practice on Sunday, so probably not. But I'll see you at school on Monday, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Phil was obviously trying, and failing, to not look disappointed. "Bye."

"Yeah, bye."

It was only later that night, when Clint was lying in the dark trying to fall asleep, that he cursed himself for not thinking to get Phil's phone number.

* * *

><p>"Clint where the hell is your brain?" Natasha snapped as Clint, for the third time, botched his attempt at a single-base lift because he was busy thinking about Phil.<p>

"Shit," Clint sighed, rubbing a palm over his face like that might help him concentrate. "I'm sorry Nat." Natasha wasn't impressed by his apology, and she glanced around at the rest of the group who were working on their own single-base lifts. Danny, who had been practicing with Clint and Natasha, was already getting Jan off the ground and up onto two hands, but they were still having a bit of trouble coordinating their individual balances together enough for him to switch to one hand.

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him harder, like she thought maybe she could read his mind if she just narrowed her eyes enough. Whatever she saw on his face (he assumed it had to be more than clueless confusion) made her glare lessen a bit. She scooped up her hoodie off the ground, threw it on over her black sports bra, and grabbed his arm so that she could drag him out into the hallway.

The automatic lights flipped on as they stepped out, making the big hallway seem even larger in its emptiness. Natasha kept leading him until they were leaning against the beige lockers set opposite from the gym's double doors.

Since it was Sunday, the heat in the school wasn't on, and Clint wished that he'd been given the option of grabbing his hoodie before they left the gym. Leaning against the cold metal lockers wasn't helping any, and he shivered a bit.

"Seriously, Clint, what the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded. "If you can't bother to pay attention, just leave. I'm not going to risk you getting me hurt."

That, more than anything, made Clint feel bad. He didn't want Natasha to get hurt, and he didn't want to let her down just because he was thinking too much about Phil and the sudden and surprising change in their relationship.

Phil had gone from actively ignoring him to kissing him sweetly in his bedroom in less than 24 hours, and Clint wasn't sure what to make of that. He was pleased, obviously, but also kind of worried that Phil's attitude could turn on a dime again.

"I'm sorry," Clint offered, "I've got a lot on my mind, but you're right, I need to focus. I won't get distracted again."

Natasha continued staring at him, and then shook her head. "No, not good enough. Tell me what's got you so distracted."

"I went to Phil's house yesterday," Clint offered, and he could tell by the way Natasha leaned towards him that she was interested. "And we kind of buried the hatchet, you know? We talked a bit, we sorted stuff out, and we've agreed to be friendly." It wasn't the whole truth, but he'd promised Phil that he wouldn't tell anyone. As much as he wanted to gush to Natasha, both his excitement and his worries, he was more interested in continuing to stay on Phil's good side, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Okay," Natasha said slowly, like she wasn't quite sure she believed him. "And that's good, isn't it?"

"Well yeah," Clint said, smiling gleefully at her. "It's awesome. But he changed his attitude so fast, I'm just kinda worried that it'll change again. What am I supposed to do if I get even more attached to him than I already am and he decides he doesn't want to be nice to me anymore?"

"Then fuck him," Natasha growled, and Clint almost choked.

Not that she knew it, but that was definitely in his future plans. Natasha must have interpreted his expression as something else, though, because she continued.

"No, Clint, I'm serious. I've said it before, I don't understand why you haven't given up on him already. For some reason, you insist on trying to be close to him. Apparently that's worked out, but if he turns around and starts treating you like shit again? Then _fuck _him. You deserve better."

She had her fierce face on, the one she usually got when she was yelling at them for not performing up to standard. Her green eyes were wide, sweeping over his face like she was searching for answers there. Combined with her messy ponytail of bright red curls and her crossed arms, she looked fierce and protective, and Clint felt a sudden rush of fondness for her. Natasha was tough and could be harsh, but she cared about him, and he was grateful for that.

"Yeah, you're right. If it happens, I'll leave it alone. But it'll still hurt."

"That's the risk," Natasha shrugged, relaxing a bit. "You've got a crush on a straight boy, it's not going to work out, but you're trying to be friends. I don't get it, but I accept that that's what you're doing. If you get attached and then things go badly, it sucks and you shouldn't hold on to him. But if this is what you want then you have to accept the risk."

"Yeah," Clint sighed. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right. Now, are you sure that this is what you want? Are you sure that Phil is worth it?" Her eyes were still searching, and he wondered if she really was trying to read his mind.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay," she said and finally she flicked her eyes away from his face. She looked down the hallway for a moment, and when she looked back her face was relaxed and her eyes were no longer so wide and focused. "Now let's get back into the gym, and I want to see you _focus_, Barton. Leave your domestics off the court."

"Yes, ma'am." Clint snapped a sarcastic salute at her and followed her back into the gym.

* * *

><p>"So what's happening with you and Coulson?" Clint groaned and put his face down on the table top. He'd gotten that question from every single one of his friends since he and Phil actually sat together and had a civil conversation at lunchtime for the first time ever.<p>

"You know, we're actually having a tutoring session," Kate said, her bossy voice on full force.

"Come on, Kate," Tony said. "You can't tell me that you aren't the least bit curious about Clint and Phil suddenly acting like friends."

"What?" Kate demanded, pushing her Spanish textbook aside. "Why didn't you tell me that? That's so much more interesting than homework!"

"No it's not," Clint denied, still face down on the table. "We had a talk, we've agreed to try being friends. That's it. It's not like we're Batman and the Joker suddenly become besties."

"I mean it kinda is," Tony insisted. "Like, you're the Joker because you're obsessed and Phil's Batman because he spends his time fed up with you."

"I think your analogy needs a little work," Kate said dryly. "I think what Tony means, Clint, is that you guys spent the last few months like a pathetic puppy trying to befriend a particularly angry cat and suddenly the cat is cool with being buddies? It's kind of big news."

"Okay, firstly, you're an asshole and I am _not_ pathetic. Secondly-"

"You're a little pathetic," Tony interrupted.

"_Secondly_," Clint continued like Tony hadn't spoken. "If you think that me and Phil being friendly is big news, you lead a very sad and boring life."

"Of course I do, I'm fourteen," Kate snorted, and Clint couldn't help but smile at that. "But anyway, today friendship, tomorrow marriage right?"

"Yeah, exactly," Clint responded dryly, hoping sarcasm would hide how much he actually liked that idea.

It wasn't like he was going to start scrawling "Mr. Clint Coulson" and hearts in his notebook margins or anything, but that didn't mean that the thought of being with Phil for a really long time wasn't a good one.

"Marriage, right," Tony scoffed. "Coulson's the straightest person I've ever met. If he was gonna go gay for anyone, it would have to be someone hotter than Clint. Like Steve."

"Wow, fuck you," Clint snapped, feeling only a little vindicated when Tony's grin slipped off his face. "Katie, I'm done for today."

"But what about your homework..."

"I'll do it myself," Clint snapped, even though it wasn't her fault that Tony was such a dick.

It wasn't even really what Tony had said, but more of the confirmation that no one thought he was good enough for Phil, or that anything between them could ever happen. He shoved his book into his bag and rushed out of the library, hoping he didn't look as dramatic and hysterical as he felt.

His first instinct was to seek out Natasha, but she didn't have a free period. He knew that Phil did, though, so he headed towards the back door of the cafeteria. When he glanced in, he was pleased to see that the teacher was sitting on the far side of the room reading a book and that Phil was sitting close to the door with his nose buried in a comic book.

He shot another glance down at the teacher to make sure she wasn't paying attention and dug a pen out of his bag. He took aim and threw it, grinning when it smacked right into Phil's comic book. Phil's head jerked up, a glare fixed on his face, and Clint waved to get his attention. Phil's eyebrows raised in surprise when he saw Clint hovering in the doorway. Clint impatiently gestured him over, knowing that the longer he was in the hall, the more likely it was that security would see him and give him detention.

Phil glanced over at the teacher and then back to Clint. He hesitated, and for a second Clint thought he wasn't going to come, but then he stuck his comic in his bag, stood up, and hurried out the door.

"Come on," Clint said quietly when Phil reached him, shushing him when he tried to speak. Phil rolled his eyes but followed Clint quickly down the gym hall and out the double doors that led to the courtyard.

"Clint, where are we going?" Phil asked, glancing around nervously like he thought a security guard might jump out from behind a tree.

"Football field," Clint said, nodding down the hill towards the large stadium. "I figured no one would find us under the bleachers."

"Are we hiding?" Phil asked, but he didn't protest when Clint grabbed his hand and tugged him down the hill. They kept holding hands even after Clint had stopped pulling Phil along, and he was a little disgusted with himself for how much he was enjoying it. It was just hand holding, after all.

"Tony was being a dick," Clint explained. "And...I...well, I'm an insecure asshole and I just needed to make sure that you still wanted…"

"I still want," Phil assured him. Clint couldn't keep a grin off his face as they climbed over the chain-link fence and dashed under the bleachers. The truly ridiculous number of cigarette butts and sharpie graffiti under there proved that Clint was not the first person to think of the underside of the bleachers as a safe haven, but no one else was there at the moment.

He was surprised when Phil suddenly turned around and almost lunged at him, pressing their lips together in an almost painful clash. Clint huffed a laugh and went to kiss him back, but Phil pulled away quickly, his face flushing pink.

"Sorry," he said with a wince. "That was rough."

"It's okay!" Clint was quick to assure him, leaning back into Phil's space. "A little rough can be nice." Despite his words, when he kissed Phil again, he did it gently. He wanted Phil to take some control and gain some confidence, and he wasn't going to do that if Clint kept letting him get away with being passive.

Phil didn't disappoint. After a couple minutes of gentle, chaste kisses, Phil's arms came up and wrapped around Clint's neck, holding him close. He sighed happily when Phil pressed their lips together a bit more insistently. He rewarded the initiative by nipping lightly at Phil's bottom lip, which made him gasp a bit. Clint couldn't help but grin at the sound. His grin made Phil pull away from him.

"Hey no," he protested, trying to follow, but Phil kept leaning back. "I wasn't…"

"I know you weren't laughing at me," Phil said. "But I want to know what Tony said to you."

Clint stepped back from him and shrugged uncomfortably. It was mostly just embarrassing, now.

"Kate and Tony were asking me what's up with us. Why we're friends all of a sudden." Phil nodded, and Clint had to assume that he was getting those questions too. "So, since everyone knows I've had a crush on you since forever, Kate made a joke about us getting married and then Tony said that you'd never date me because I'm not hot enough."

Phil snorted. "And what the hell would Tony know about it? He's not…like us."

"Gay, Phil, you can say it," Clint said, and Phil flinched slightly, "Or, well, I'm bisexual. But my point is that the word isn't going hurt you."

"I know it's just a word," Phil said, wrapping his arms around his middle. "It just seems so big. I like you, I think you're cute, and I _really_ like kissing you. But I don't really know what that means to me, or what I'm supposed to call it."

"Okay," Clint said quickly. "You don't have to call it anything, I guess. I don't want to freak you out."

"I'll figure it out, eventually," Phil said, his mouth twisting uncomfortably. "But for now I'm just going to take it one day at a time."

"Oh," Clint said, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets because he suddenly felt like he should be doing something with them. "Does that go for us-this thing we're doing-too?"

He felt kind of stupid asking, but he couldn't do this if Phil was going to be hot and cold on him. He couldn't handle Phil being okay with him one day and not the next.

"No," Phil said, sounding a little uncertain. "You and me, we're...together. Right?"

"Right," Clint answered quickly, grinning in relief.

"Don't worry about Tony, or anyone else, okay?" Phil said, stepping back into Clint's space. "I was an ass, I know, but I've made my decision now. I want to be with you. Even if we're the only people that know about it. Okay?"

"Okay," Clint said, and they sealed it with a kiss.

* * *

><p>Phil drove Clint home after their respective practices were over. It was only a short drive, and when Phil pulled up in front of Nick's house, Clint found that he wasn't ready to let Phil go yet.<p>

"You want to come in?" he asked, and then immediately realized how weird it would probably be for Phil to hang out in his principal's house. But Phil agreed and turned off the car so quickly that it was obvious that he wasn't ready to leave yet, either.

Clint was somewhat surprised to find that Nick was already home when he got through the front door. Mondays were generally pretty busy for him, after all. But there he was, spread out on the couch with a bag of kettle corn and a rerun of _American Ninja Warrior_ playing on the TV.

"Oh, hey," Clint said, shifting awkwardly. "Phil's here."

"I can see that," Nick said, his eyebrows going up slowly. One of the annoying things about his foster dad being the principal of his school was that Nick always knew _everything_. He was practically omniscient. So Clint knew that he knew that his friendship with Phil was a very new development. He wasn't sure if Nick knew about his crush, but apparently Clint was incredibly obvious, so he probably did.

"So we're just gonna go upstairs…" Clint said, backing towards the stairs slowly.

"Leave the door open," Nick said, pinning Clint with that knowing look of his. Clint could feel the blush that spread over his face, even as he protested.

"It's not...Phil's not...we're just gonna do some homework and…"

"No boys in your room unless the door's open," Nick said. "Or girls, for that matter. Be glad I'm letting you go up to your room at all. The kitchen table is perfectly suitable for homework."

"Okay, door open, got it," Clint said quickly. He turned and practically pulled Phil up the stairs behind him. He ushered Phil quickly into his room and left the door open a few inches, because Nick hadn't said that it had to be _all the way_ open.

"He knows?" Phil asked, looking slightly amazed. "I mean, about you being...being bi?"

"Well, yeah," Clint said, shrugging. "I think anyone who has ever met me knows. I don't hide it very well, do I?"

Phil frowned down at the carpet, his shoulders hunched tightly. Clint let him contemplate the fibers for a few seconds, taking the time to empty his gym clothes into the laundry hamper and settle his backpack, with a bit more focus than usual, on his desk.

"You don't even try to hide it," Phil said finally, just as Clint was trying to think of something else he could fiddle with. He could only rearrange the position of his bag so many times.

"No," Clint said, and then waited, because he wasn't really sure what Phil wanted to say.

"Why?" Phil asked, looking up at him, but avoiding meeting Clint's eyes. "Or I guess...how? Aren't you worried about how people will react?"

"Not really," Clint answered honestly. "Like, I mean, if someone is gonna try to beat the shit out of me for it, then yeah, I'm a bit worried. But I learned at Carson's that most people aren't gonna hassle a guy who looks like me, because I look like I could actually fight back." He flexed an arm at Phil and waggled his eyebrows, which made Phil snort and crack a smile. It quickly left his face again, though, and Clint took a deep breath to try and continue his explanation.

"I didn't even know that bisexuality was frowned upon until after I had already started kissing boys," he said. "I didn't have the most normal childhood, you know? But if I ever learned one thing from my useless father, it was that living in fear is no way to live. And believe me, I know how preachy and after-school special that sounds, but it's true."

Clint couldn't keep back his self-deprecating smile, and he rolled his eyes at himself, but Phil didn't seem to think Clint's statement was ridiculous. He pushed on.

"What I'm saying is, my dad beat the shit out of me when I was little. I was terrified to leave my room, or to make too much noise. Some nights me and Barney, my brother, we'd go hungry because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by asking for food.

"After my dad died, we went to an orphanage where there were too many kids and not enough adults, and for the first time we could do things without worrying about getting beat for it. And I decided I was never going to let myself be so afraid again. So if someone wants to hate me because I think my biology partner is really cute, I really don't give a fuck."

He chucked Phil under the chin with his index finger, and watched as he struggled to force down a smile. Before he knew it, Phil had pressed close to him and wrapped his arms around Clint's waist and rested his cheek on Clint's shoulder. He patted Phil's back, hoping he didn't seem awkward about it.

"I just don't think I can be as brave as you are," Phil said, his voice sounding loud next to Clint's ear. "I wish I could be. I wish I could just not care. But I don't think I can."

""That's okay," Clint assured him. "If you're not ready to be out then you don't have to be. I'm not going to force you to be. This is all at your own pace, okay?"

Phil nodded, and Clint couldn't help but tighten his hold around Phil. He seemed like he really needed it, and if Clint was getting a bit of a thrill at having Phil pressed close to him and feeling his breath on Clint's neck, well. He wasn't going to tell anyone.

"What if I'm never ready?" Phil asked quietly after a long moment.

"It will all work out, Phil. If you decide never to tell anyone...well, we'll get there when we get there. For now, just take it one day at a time. Like you said earlier."

"Right," Phil said, seeming to remember his conviction from under the bleachers. He relaxed a bit in Clint's hold, like remembering his plan had taken a load off his worries. "You're right. I'm sorry I'm such a spaz."

"It's okay," Clint said, giving Phil an extra squeeze. "I like you anyway."

He leaned into the hug for ten extra seconds before he pulled back and gave Phil his very best dopey Iowa boy smile. "We've had some pretty heavy talks today. Are we done with that for now?"

"Yeah," Phil said, a small smile creeping across his face. "I can't be in crisis mode all the time."

"Good!" Clint mimed wiping sweat from his brow and then went to retrieve his backpack from the desk. "Because I have so many questions about mitosis, Mr. Biology Tutor."

Phil laughed, and any tension that might have remained immediately dissipated. By the time Nick came up the stairs and pushed the door all the way open ten minutes later, they were lying side-by-side on Clint's bed and Phil was copying the little diagrams from Clint's open textbook into a notebook while he explained metaphase.

When Nick stared at them suspiciously, Clint only smiled innocently in response, reveling in the feel of Phil's warmth pressed against his side.

* * *

><p>The two weeks before cheerleading Nationals passed quickly. The second round of semi-finals was played on the second, which meant that Phil's practices had doubled and Clint didn't get to see him outside of class unless they were both practicing in the Big Gym at the same time. The extra practices paid off, though, because SHIELD wiped the floor with the Rome Black Knights, and would be going to State. Which, of course, meant that there would be even more practices.<p>

Nationals being so close meant that the cheerleaders had also practiced every evening after school and on Saturday. Natasha had insisted that they practice their Nationals routine until they got it perfect three times in row every day. If someone missed a step or had to correct their balance on a lift, the whole thing started over again. It was brutal, but Natasha had a manic gleam in her eyes that made everyone afraid to call her out. Their practices left Clint sore and exhausted.

On top of the extra cheerleading, pretty much all of Clint's teachers decided to assign big projects and papers for one last big grade before they started prepping for finals. So after he got home from cheerleading and just wanted to pass out, he had to eat dinner and then work on writing papers that he knew took hours longer for him to finish than his friends. They'd been doing the essay grind for years, so they knew how to do it quick and easy. Clint had a bit more trouble.

To be fair, though, AP week had also come to pass, so a lot of his friends, including Phil, had spent hours studying, testing, and being exhausted from testing, so they were probably even more tired than he was. The one time he and Phil had managed to be alone together, they'd actually fallen asleep about thirty minutes after Clint had arrived at his house. While it had been nice to wake up face-to-face with a sleeping Phil, he was annoyed that they'd missed an opportunity.

The two weeks had been a complete and total hell of exhaustion and busyness, but those two weeks were now over. Now, it was ten am and Clint was almost bouncing in his seat on the coach bus because they had just passed under the main gate of _Disney World_.

Pretty much everyone else on the bus was asleep because they'd left Midgard very early that morning, but Clint had been way too excited ever since he got off the plane to fall back asleep. Instead, he practically plastered his face to the window and watched everything as they passed.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of a cluster of white-washed mission style buildings with red clay tiled roofs. Coach Hand got off the bus, and headed into the first building while the second chaperone, a math teacher that Clint didn't know, started listing rules and handing out manila folders with schedules and tickets and food vouchers.

An excited chatter started up as Coach Hand got back on the bus and started passing out room keys as the driver took them around towards the parking lot by their rooms. No one was really listening to the listed rules, and Coach Hand didn't actually seem to care all that much. Clint suspected that she'd been roped into the cheerleading gig and was planning to spend the next few days out by the pool with something alcoholic in her hand.

Even the rooms were amazing. The two queen beds looked like little pirate ships, with a headboard made up of a mast with ratlines, a sail, and a ship's wheel set in the middle. The bedside lamps were also a part of the headboard feature, made to look like lanterns hanging off either side of the rigging.

There was a flat screen TV on the opposite wall of the beds, sat atop a dresser that looked like a bunch of crates stacked on top of each other. Against the back wall was a large curtain that looked like the Jolly Roger from _Pirates of the Caribbean_ that hid the bathroom and sink area from view.

"Dude," Clint said, grinning at Sam who was his roommate. "Dude, this is the coolest."

"Yeah, I know!" Sam said, grinning just as huge. "We stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort every year, but this is the first time I've gotten a pirate room! Usually they've just got brightly colored bedding and stuff."

They spent a few minutes picking out which bed they wanted and settling their stuff. Clint was leaving his shaving kit on the bathroom counter when there came the heavy beat of fists against the door. Sam opened it to reveal Natasha, Bobbi, and Kate who were all grinning like maniacs.

"Clint, grab your ticket, we're going to Hollywood Studios!" Natasha demanded.

Clint saw no reason to disobey.

* * *

><p>Their day at Hollywood Studios was jam-packed with awesome. The girls had all been to Disney World before, so they knew what were the best things to do and when to go to them. They also seemed to have extensive knowledge of fastpasses,which were paper cards that let them skip the lines, including which ones were necessary to get and when they'd likely run out of them.<p>

They'd gotten fast passes for the Toy Story Midway Mania as soon as they got through the gate, because apparently it was the most popular ride and the passes ran out quickly, and then headed off to the Hollywood Tower of Terror. It was a ride based off of a Twilight Zone episode and followed a story of the riders being in an elevator that had broken down and was crashing. Natasha insisted it was the best ride Disney had to offer, while Bobbi insisted made her vaguely nauseous every time.

The line was excruciatingly long and mostly outdoors. When they finally got inside, there was _another_ line, though admittedly it was much shorter and the way they'd decorated the inside like an abandoned hotel and then later like a boiler room gave them more things to inspect. Bobbi and Kate were competing to see who could find more Hidden Mickeys, which were apparently seemingly innocuous parts of the decoration that were made to look like Mickey Mouse heads and hidden throughout the parks.

The Tower of Terror turned out to be completely worth the wait, starting by raising them up to a level and sending them along a mostly invisible path through a surprisingly creepy story explanation, completely with a ghostly projection of a little ghost girl singing and skipping towards them. Clint hated to admit it, but it was honestly the freakiest part of the ride.

When it started to rise up again, he could see faint flickers of light from the outside, and Kate gripped his hand in anticipation when little flashes of lightning started sparking in front of them. The large doors at the front of the elevator shaft opened up in front of them and let them see out over the whole park.

And then the elevator dropped.

Clint gasped in surprised as he was literally lifted out of his seat, only the safety harness keeping him in place. Kate and Natasha were shrieking in delight, and Clint swore he heard Bobbi groan. Their descent stopped rather suddenly, and almost immediately they were shot back up into the air. For a moment, right before they started to fall again, it felt like the ride was no longer on any sort of track, but simply hanging there in the open air. It was a deliciously frightening feeling.

He wanted to go again as soon as they got off, but the girls convinced him to go try something else first.

They settled on the Rock N' Roller Coaster, which was a truly excellent in-door Aerosmith-themed rollercoaster, and then decided to sit for a while and watch a show that was all live stunts like they did in movies. Clint found that his leg muscles were jumping a bit from all the walking and standing they'd been doing, and he suspected that his feet were really going to hurt by the end of the day. They had lunch at a place called the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant, which was set up inside to look like a drive-in movie theater and played old movie shorts at the front.

All of the tables looked like Ford Lincolns from the fifties, and even though that meant that Natasha and Bobbi were seated with their backs to Clint and Kate, it was still really cool and fun. They spent half of lunch taking selfies and group shots in the purple car they'd been seated at.

After lunch they used their fast passes to go on Midway Mania, which was actually a game combined with a ride, in which they rode around in little cars and shot at images on digital screens to earn points. They picked up fastpasses for another go on the Tower of Terror and then headed to the Great Movie Ride, which was cute, if a little long.

Then it was time for Star Tours, which was a Star Wars ride that provided a lot of things to look at and see while they waited. Clint privately thought that Phil would completely geek out about it. He took a picture of the At-At outside and texted it to Phil, but he received only a few exclamation points in response.

"Hey, why are you making frowny face?" Kate demanded, digging her elbow sharply into his side. Clint hissed and jumped away from her, scowling.

"I'm not making 'frowny face'," he told her, admittedly a bit sullenly.

"You totally are," she prodded.

"I thought it was more like pouting," Bobbi offered.

"Who are you texting, Clint?" Natasha asked. Clint tightened his grip on his phone just as her hand flashed out to grab it. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him when she didn't manage to snatch it away.

"Yeah, Clint, who are you texting?" Bobbi asked. They shuffled forward a few feet in the line, and Clint stubbornly stuck his phone in his pocket. The last thing he needed was for them to try and read through his and Phil's text log. There would be no hiding anything if they saw that.

"I bet it was Phil," Kate said in a sing-song voice, "No one can make Clint look like a kicked puppy quite like Phil can."

"And yet he keeps going back for more ear scratchies," Natasha sighed.

Clint scowled at all of them in turn, but they were too busy laughing at him to care. Whatever. If they wanted to make fun of him, that was fine. They didn't know that his determination had finally paid off. They didn't know that Phil liked him and wanted him around, and they didn't know the sweet noises he made when he was kissed. _So there_. Clint had won this round, even if he was the only one that knew it.

"If you must know," he said, interrupting their giggles. "It was Nick griping at me about my room not being clean before I left."

"Oh," Bobbi said, frowning. "Well, that's much less fun."

"Well, your room is 1200 miles away, so there's nothing you can do now!" Kate said brightly. "and ooh, look at that robot!"

Clint had to hide his smile at Kate's attempts to distract him from getting yelled at by his foster father, because really what she was doing was distracting them from asking more questions about Phil. Natasha fixed him with a long, suspicious stare for a moment, but she didn't say anything and eventually allowed herself to be dragged into the conversation about the interactive lines.

That left Clint alone to his own thoughts about Phil's unresponsiveness. He was trying not to be too bothered by it. He didn't want to be too clingy, and Phil was probably doing something. It probably didn't mean anything.

To save himself from his own thoughts, he gave in to Kate's distraction techniques and let the flow of Disney magic and fun erase his anxieties. Everything with Phil was fine, and he was in Disney World. He was going to enjoy it.

Star Tours ended up being a fun ride, though all the shaking had actually made Clint feel a little nauseous. Bobbi seemed to agree with him, and he was grateful that there was still a bit of a waiting time for their Tower of Terror fastpass to come up. They filled in the time by taking a lot of silly pictures near the Sorcerer's Hat and the Hollywood Studios sign, as well as with a bunch of costumed characters.

By the time dinner rolled around, Clint was exhausted, hot, and ready to head back to the hotel, but Natasha insisted they had to stay for _Fantasmic!, _which wasn't until 8:30. Clint had reluctantly consented to stay when Bobbi and Kate agreed that he had to see it, and they decided to get a quick bite to eat at one of the food counters and then explore the shops until eight.

Even the shops were cool and themed, and Clint was rather enamored with the Villains in Vogue shop, though the prices on everything made him shudder. Nick had given him a significant (read: insane) amount of money to spend on food and souvenirs, but at heart he was a poor kid from Iowa and he'd never be able to bring himself to spend eighty dollars on a hoodie.

Bobbi, however, had no such reservations and dropped a significant amount of money on a huge stuffed version of Scar from _The Lion King_. They spent an extra few minutes arranging to have it shipped back to Midgard after Natasha pointed out that she'd have to buy the thing it's own seat to get it on the plane.

"I don't even know what you're going to do with that thing," Natasha sighed as they headed up the walkway towards where the _Fantasmic!_ stage was.

It was a huge incline packed from wall to wall with people waiting for the show to start, and they pressed their own way into the crowd, weaving around people so that they could get closer to the gates.

"Obviously I'm going to snuggle with it every night, duh," Bobbi said.

"Will there be any room left in your bed for you?" Kate asked, snorting. "I mean the thing was almost the same size as a real lion."

"There will be room," Bobbi promised sagely. "Some of us don't have boyfriends and have to find our snuggle opportunities elsewhere. Right Clint?"

"Uh, right," Clint agreed, trying really hard not to think about Phil so that he wouldn't blush or do something else equally incriminating.

"So you buy a giant lion to fill the void in your life," Natasha said skeptically.

"Yep!" Bobbi replied enthusiastically. "He's big and cuddly and most importantly, he'll never argue with me.

While Natasha seemed to be warming to the idea of a stuffed lion as suitable alternative for Bucky, the crowd began to move forward to file into the seating area, and their conversation was forgotten as they tried to wriggle into a space in line that would put them in the best seats possible.

_Fantasmic!_ ended up being just as amazing as the girls had promised. It was a magical combination of music, actors, and a water and lights show, and Clint loved every second of it, from the walking vendors selling various overpriced light toys to the clips of Disney movies projected on huge sprayed water screens. He actually found himself gasping and leaning forward at the edge of his seat when Mickey faced off against the huge animatronic dragon. When the show was over, he clapped until his hands hurt.

He was glad they'd made him stay to see the show, but leaving with the crowd and getting a shuttle bus back to their hotel was almost torture. They got back to their rooms at about 9:30, and all he really wanted to do was take a shower, relax and get off his feet.

Exhausted, he showered the sweat off, crawled into bed, and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint woke to someone knocking and nearly groaned when he saw it was barely past seven in the morning. He made an attempt at burying his head under the pillow to drown out the noise, but now that he was awake he could hear that the shower was running and the general noise of people existing. Combined with the knocking, it was fruitless to try and escape the noise.

He groaned and rolled out of bed, ready to tell the girls that he wanted to attempt at least another hour of sleep before they headed out for another day of madness. However, when he wrenched the door open, it wasn't the girls standing there, but Phil.

"Uh," he said, blinking a few times to make sure he wasn't still dreaming.

"Hey!" Phil said with a nervous smile.

"You're here," Clint said dumbly, and Phil nodded, his smile still a bit uncertain.

"I am," he agreed.

"In Florida," Clint continued, his sleepy brain having trouble catching up.

"Yep," Phil answered, his smile waning a bit more. "Surprise?"

Clint stared at him for a long moment, and then his brain caught up with what was going on and he pulled Phil close and kissed him on the mouth. Phil laughed and pushed Clint further into the room and closed the door behind them, his hands coming up to frame Clint's face.

After a few long seconds in which his brain burst with joy, he remembered that he probably had some pretty spectacular morning breath and pulled away. Phil grinned a bit goofily at him, and Clint couldn't help but grin back.

"I can't believe you're here!" he exclaimed, heading over to the sink so that he could brush his teeth.

"I came with a couple of the guys from the team," Phil told him proudly. "I wanted to see you compete, and we decided that since you guys cheer for us, we'll cheer for you. We just got in like half an hour ago."

"This is so great." Clint knew he was gushing, but he was excited. He was in the _Happiest Place on Earth_ and now his boyfriend was there too. The only way it could get better was if they won Nationals the next day.

Satisfied with his hygiene, Clint hurried back over to Phil so they could kiss again. It had been barely been more than two days, but Clint didn't think he'd ever missed someone else's mouth so much before. They'd just barely started when the shower turned off, and they sprang apart quickly. Clint had almost forgotten about Sam entirely.

He decided to get dressed so that he wasn't hovering obviously close to Phil's side, and he got a rush of mischievous pleasure by Sam's surprised squawk when he came out of the bathroom and saw Phil there, like they were getting away with something.

After Clint was dressed, they hustled out of the room together, hoping that they might be able to get breakfast and out of the hotel before any of their friends found them. It wasn't that they minded hanging out with them so much as Clint really wanted to be able to treat the day like an excellent date with his boyfriend at Disney World. They couldn't do that if anyone they knew was around.

They managed to eat and get out undetected, and Clint found himself feeling so giddy that he didn't even notice his lingering exhaustion as they headed towards the gates of the Magic Kingdom. Their little adventure was put on hold for a while, as they had to stand in a long line to get Phil a ticket, but Clint was given an orange button with Mickey and friends on it that proclaimed "1st Visit!". He promptly pinned the button to his shirt.

Immediately after they got through the security lines, they were met with the sight of a large arrangement of flowers organized to look like Mickey Mouse's head in front of a raised train station.

"Would you like a picture?" a woman holding a large camera asked them, and Clint realized that he'd stopped to stare at the arrangement in awe. He felt a bit like an exciteable five year old, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Yeah, please," Phil said cheerfully, and he pulled Clint against his side with his arm around Clint's shoulders. Clint slipped his own arm around Phil's waist so that it wasn't awkwardly wedged between them, and smiled. The camera flashed a few times and then the woman was handing Phil a card and explaining how something called a photopass worked. Clint was too busy watching the train pull out of the station overhead to pay much attention.

At least, not until Phil laced their fingers together and started gently pulling him along.

Clint glanced down at their joined hands, a bit horrified by the blush he knew was building along his cheeks.

"Phil," he prompted, and then waved their joined hands at him when Phil just looked at him questioningly. "Aren't you...Didn't you...I thought you didn't want people to know?"

"Well," Phil said, looking almost like he wished he hadn't done it in the first place. It made Clint suddenly want to cling to his hand out of fear that he might pull away. "I was a huge dick to you, before. I know I've explained why, and I've told you that I didn't realize I was being as horrible as I was because of my own insecurity.

"I can't really make that up to you, but I thought that here in this place where no one knows us, I'd show you that I do really like you, and that I'm not ashamed of being with you." His uncertain smile became a little more genuine when Clint squeezed his fingers gently.

"But we do have friends here. What if they see us?" he asked.

Phil glanced around at the mass of people surrounding them, his eyebrows raised and a slight smirk on his face.

"There's thousands of people here. I think we'll be okay." He paused for a second, like a thought had just occurred to him and then started backtracking quickly. "But we don't have to, if you don't want to. I just thought…"

"No!" Clint said quickly, hoping to derail any self-deprecating thoughts. "I want to! I really, really do."

"Yeah?" Phil asked, his face brightening considerably, and Clint grinned.

"Go on a super awesome date with my boyfriend in Disney World and be grossly adorable?" Clint asked. "Uh, yeah. Let's go."

Phil laughed and they headed through the small pass that let them onto Main Street USA, and Clint couldn't help but gasp a little. They were standing in what looked like, obviously, the main street of a town, but the buildings all looked like they'd come right out of the early 20th century. They were all pushed together like brownstones, but each building looked different than the next.

The street was packed with people going in and out of shops, stopping to take pictures, and looking around frantically for children who'd run off in fits of amazement. There was an actual horse-drawn trolley full of people not far off from where they were standing.

The very best part, though, was the stunning figure of Cinderella Castle standing tall against the sky at the end of the street.

"Oh my god, Phil," Clint said, aware that he sounded giddy like a child. "_Disney World!_"

"Yep," Phil agreed, smiling indulgently. "Disney World. Come on."

He led Clint down the street and into a large shop called the Emporium, which was also packed with people. Phil, however, seemed to know exactly where he was going, and he led Clint towards the back wall until they reached a display of Mickey Mouse ear hats in all different styles.

"Oh wow!" Clint exclaimed, rushing to pick one up. It was pink and had a tiara on the front with the word "princess" embroidered above it. A sparkly pink veil hung down the back. He popped it on his head and waggled his eyebrows at Phil suggestively.

He knew he was being kind of immature, but it had suddenly hit him that he was in Disney, a place that he'd always wanted to go. Hollywood Studios had been fun, but the Magic Kingdom felt and looked like the Disney Clint had always seen on TV and coveted.

"Very cute," Phil told him in a very serious voice, unable to fight a smile. "Pick one out, I'll get it for you."

"What, really?" Clint asked, looking away from the hats he'd been appreciating to stare at Phil incredulously.

"Yeah, really," Phil said, grinning. "You can't go to Disney and not get an ear hat. It's sacrilege."

"Well, yeah, but I can get it for myself…" Clint started to protest, but Phil waved his words away.

"Clint. Let me get you an ear hat."

Clint stared at him for a long minute, a little touched by how much effort Phil was putting in to making him feel appreciated, and then he grinned.

"Okay, but you have to get one too."

Phil agreed readily and they spent a few minutes trying on hats and taking pictures together wearing them. Phil settled, to absolutely no one's surprise, on the Captain America hat. Clint took a little longer to pick his out, but he finally settled on a new one called the "Glow with the Show" hat, which was covered in multi-colored splotches and Mickey faces and had ears that, if the sticker was to be believed, would light up and glow along with the park's light shows.

They got their names embroidered on the back, and they proudly wore the hats out of the shop.

"We have to get a picture with Walt," Phil informed him as they got closer to the castle.

Clint could see another planter a bit farther ahead with a large statue of Walt Disney holding Mickey Mouse's hand where tons of people were having their pictures taken. They located another photopass person and got a few pictures, and then they moved on quickly to get pictures in front of the castle.

They took two normal shots, arms around each other and smiling, and then Phil surprised him by pressing a kiss to Clint's cheek for the next one. Not to be outdone, Clint turned his head and caught Phil's lips with his for the last picture, grinning when he pulled away and saw that Phil was blushing.

"Okay, so," Clint prompted after they'd collected their photopass card. "Where do we go first?"

"Well," Phil said, pulling a map of the park from his back pocket. Clint had absolutely no idea where he'd gotten it, but in the past few weeks he'd started to understand how anal retentive Phil could be. He always had some sort of plan for everything he did, and he was extremely organized. The guy color-coded his class notes.

"There are some things you just have to do in the Magic Kingdom," Phil explained seriously. "It's like a Disney rite of passage. For one, you have to do all three Mountains."

Clint glanced at him to see if he was kidding, but it didn't look like it.

"Mountains?" he questioned. He couldn't get the image of hiking out of his brain, even though he knew that hiking was probably not at all what Phil had in mind.

"Yep," Phil said, popping the 'p'. "Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain." He pointed to three different spots on the map, two of them right next to each other in Frontierland and the other on the opposite side of the park in Tomorrowland.

"Okay," Clint agreed, game for anything. Phil had clearly been to Disney before and knew what he was doing. Clint had no problem following his lead like he'd done with the girls the day before.

"So I think we should hit Space Mountain first," Phil explained. "It's early so the line won't be long. If we wait until later the wait can be up to two hours. Then we'll head over to Frontierland, grab a fastpass for Splash Mountain and then go on Big Thunder. It's best to hit Splash Mountain once it gets hotter, because you're pretty much guaranteed to get wet."

"Sounds perfect," Clint said, so dazzled by the Disney magic and Phil's fingers tangling again with his that he probably would have gone along with anything.

Phil looked pleased at this and started them in the direction Tomorrowland and Space Mountain. Just as Phil had guessed, there was only a twenty minute listed wait, and they actually got through in less than ten. Space Mountain was a much tamer rollercoaster than the ones he'd gone on in Hollywood Studios, but he still had a blast on it. There was just something about all the small details that they put into the theme, as well as blasting at high speeds through the dark with only stars and meteors to light the way.

After, they made their way quickly across the park to Frontierland, where they immediately got in line for the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The wait was a little longer than for Space Mountain, but they still got through in just over twenty minutes. The theme was something like an old abandoned mining shaft that had a railroad running through it. It was actually quite slow, for a roller coaster. It hadn't been boring, exactly, but it wasn't nearly as fun as Space Mountain had been.

"Okay," said Phil when they exited the ride. "It's still a bit early for Splash Mountain, we'd be better off doing that around two when it's the hottest part of the day. So I suggest we get a fastpass for that now, it should put our time around one or two, and then go to Adventureland and get on Pirates, and then up to the Liberty Square for the Haunted Mansion. Sound good?"

He said it all very quickly and rapid fire, and Clint wasn't sure that he'd really comprehended it all, so he nodded dumbly. Phil seemed to notice, because he frowned and his ears went a little pink.

"Listen, I know I'm kinda being a dictator about where we should go and what we should do," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "If you want to tell me to shut up, you can, and we can just wander around like normal people…"

"Phil," Clint interrupted him. "I kinda knew you were a control freak, okay? It doesn't bother me. And it seems to me that your method will get me on as many rides as we can manage as quickly as possible, so I am fine with it. Lead on, Maestro."

Phil went a little pinker and awarded Clint's faith in him with a quick peck on the cheek. Clint hardly had time to bask in it before they were off again, heading for the fastpass machines for Splash Mountain. They stopped again to take another photopass picture, which Clint was really starting to think was a great feature. They were able to get plenty of pictures together without having to worry about asking strangers to take them.

After their photo op, they headed onward to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was easily marked by the mast of a ship with a black sail bearing the ride's name out front. The building was made to look like sandstone and had a line from a pirate shanty painted above the doorways. Inside, it was rather dim, lit only by lantern sconces filled with low, flickering light. Off to the left was a Goofy dressed like a pirate, posing for pictures with a long line of children and adults alike.

The ride itself, while not a coaster, was pretty great. Clint's favorite part was "sailing" in between the two pirate ships having a battle, where the water would light up and splash as if there were cannon balls raining down all around them.

Phil's favorite part, however, was in one of the scenes of a town being pillaged. He nudged Clint's side with his elbow and pointed gleefully at a group of women being sold for brides and crowed "We wants the redhead!" along with the ride's audio track. The ride also featured Jack Sparrow from the movies, which Phil assured him had been added in later, and ended with him sitting in a room full of treasure singing the pirate shanty as they sailed past.

The exited the ride into the gift shop and spent a few minutes browsing, trying on eyepatches and "arr"ing at each other in admittedly pathetic attempts to sound tough and pirate-y. Phil had to talk Clint out of buying a t-shirt that said "My Boyfriend's a Pirate", if only because it only came in girl's youth sizes.

They didn't end up buying anything there, and instead set off towards the Haunted Mansion, which was easy to spot pretty much as soon as they entered Liberty Square, as it was a large brick gothic-style mansion with a greenhouse on one side at the end of the street. The line was insanely long by the time they got there, and Clint wanted to just get another Fastpass and come back, but Phil assured him that the stand-by line was worth it.

He wasn't wrong.

The whole line weaved through what was supposed to be the yard of the mansion, and pretty quickly came along to a cemetery filled with disturbing-looking busts of the family that was supposed to have lived in the house most recently and gravestones with clever sayings on them. There were several interactive tombs as well, including one that played music when you pressed on the instruments carved on the sides, one of a sailor in the bathtub that occasionally leaked or spat water, and one that was meant to be the tomb of a poet who was calling out from beyond the grave for help with her rhymes. The line took almost an hour to get through, but it was exciting enough that Clint didn't really mind.

The mansion itself had definitely been worth the wait, carefully treading the line of creepy and fun, though he did hear a few of the younger kids wailing at the bride in the attic. He couldn't fault them for it, either, as he'd leaned back against his seat when they'd passed in front of her, filled with the irrational fear that she might lunge at them with her hatchet.

After they exited the mansion it was only around one o' clock, and their Fastpass time for Splash Mountain wasn't until 2:15, so they decided to wander around for a bit and find somewhere to eat.

Unlike before, when they'd been rushing to get to lines, they strolled away from the Mansion, their fingers tangled together loosely between them. Knowing that he had permission, Clint had taken to grabbing a hold of Phil's hand every chance he got. It was almost like he was trying to be as couple-y in public as possible before they had to go back to Midgard and had to pretend they were only friends again.

As they passed through Fantasyland, behind the shadow of Cinderella Castle, Phil started looking through the map again.

"What were you thinking you wanted to eat?" he asked. "We've got quite a bit of time, so we could do sit-down if you wanted, or we could through a quick-service line instead."

"I dunno," Clint answered, craning his neck around to try and look at everything around them. It was all so detailed and busy, he couldn't really focus on just one thing. It took a minute for Phil's question to really sink into his brain, and then he answered, "I kinda want to sit down after standing in lines for so long."

Phil hummed in acknowledgement, his eyes flicking over the map. Clint had to stop looking around at everything in order to steer him along so that they wouldn't walk into people or trample small children, of which there were many.

"Are you hungry for anything special?" he asked, seemingly not noticing that Clint was herding him.

"Not really. Burger or a sandwich or something will do just fine," Clint said. He hadn't noticed it before, so awestruck with everything around him, but he was actually a bit hungry. His stomach wasn't quite growling yet, but he thought it would start soon.

"What about the Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant?" Phil read out loud. "Says burgers, sandwiches and pasta. It's pretty close."

"Sounds perfect," Clint said, glad when Phil tucked the map away and started paying attention to where he was walking again. Phil ushered him just slightly to the right, leading them back towards the main circle in front of the castle, and that's when Clint saw the sign.

"Phil," he said urgently. "How hungry are you?"

"Hungry," Phil said, frowning a bit. "But not starving. Why?"

Clint pointed gleefully at the large purple banner. "Merida, Phil! Can we go meet Merida?"

"It's a forty minute wait time…" Phil started doubtfully, and Clint deflated slightly, realizing it was kind of stupid for a teenage boy to want to meet a girl dressed in up in a princess dress. Phil, however, had clearly seen the look of disappointment on Clint's face and quickly back-pedaled. "But yeah, of course, let's go."

"No," Clint said, not wanting to make Phil do something he clearly didn't want to do. "It's okay, come on let's go eat."

"Clint," Phil said, a little impatiently. "If you want to see Merida, let's go see Merida. Who knows when you'll get the chance again, right?"

"Well, yeah," Clint said, and he had to admit that he was stupidly excited to see her, even though he knew it wasn't real. He'd saved change he'd found dropped around the circus, scrounging up nickels, dimes, and quarters in a sock that he'd lost the mate to so that he could pay for a ticket to see _Brave_ in theaters when he was fourteen. It was the first time he could remember seeing a movie in a theater, and the whole experience had been spectacular.

He didn't have to decide whether he was going to keep refusing or just go, though, because Phil started forcibly steering him towards the line. Clint was a little relieved to see that he wasn't the only teenager waiting among the group of little girls in various princess dresses.

The waiting area was another interactive one, full of tapestries of Merida and her family, a table for the little kids to color at while their parents held their place in line, and a mini archery range where people could fire a toy bow and arrow set with a velcro tip at a target about two feet in front of them. It was cute, and he took a snapchat of a little girl in a Merida costume lining up a shot to send to Kate, who responded with a picture of her and Bobbi duck-facing in front of Madame Leota's tombstone from the line at the Haunted Mansion.

About halfway through the line, Clint's stomach started to growl, but he definitely wasn't going to complain when he was the one who had derailed their lunch plans. Phil was a good sport about it, though, and he spent their time in the line making plans for what they should do after Splash Mountain, occasionally reading out the names of attractions and asking Clint if he was interested in them.

When Clint finally got to the front of the line he realized that he really had no idea what to say. She seemed pretty used to that, though, and greeted him cheerfully with a semi-Scottish accent and what was probably general chatter.

"So what brings you here to see me?" she prompted him, her hands planted on her hips.

"Uh," Clint offered, and Phil helpfully piped up for him.

"Clint's an archer too," he offered, and Merida's smile stretched.

"Oh, how wonderful!" she exclaimed. "And who is this fellow? Is he your prince?"

Clint saw Phil's ears go pink and he knew he was also blushing, but he nodded. "Yeah, I guess he is."

"How lovely!" she exclaimed, and then waved her hand at the cart behind her with the three animatronic bear cubs. "I was going to offer one of my brothers to you, but I suppose you're already spoken for!"

"I guess I am," Clint grinned, liking that they were telling someone, even if it was a Disney Princess.

"Well, that's just too bad. Would you like a picture?"

Clint let her steer him in front of the camera and smiled for the pictures, trying to focus on both the photopass camera and his cellphone, which Phil was using to snap pictures. She firmly but politely steered them away after the picture was done, but Clint wasn't offended. Part of her job was to keep the line going, after all.

By the time they got through with Merida, it was 1:30, and they hurried over to the Tomorrowland Terrace to get some food. The place was jam-packed with people, of course, so Phil sent Clint to grab a table while he went up to wait in line for their food.

Clint gratefully collapsed into a chair at a round table that looked like it hadn't quite managed to get wiped down after the last occupants had left it, but it was the only open one that he could see. A little scattered salt never killed anyone.

He jumped in surprise when a tray set down on the table about a minute after he sat, wondering how Phil could have possibly gotten through the line that quickly. Except it wasn't Phil, but Natasha and Bucky.

"Oh, hey guys," he greeted, panicking internally, wondering if they'd seen Clint and Phil walk in holding hands.

"Hey," Natasha said. "I was wondering where you'd got to. We missed you at breakfast this morning."

"Oh, yeah," Clint answered, hoping he didn't look fidgety or nervous. "I ran into Phil and we decided we wanted to get to the park as early as possible so that we could do everything we wanted to."

"Right," Natasha answered, a cat-ate-the-canary look on her face as she sipped daintily at her drink and stared at him. Clint shifted uncomfortably.

"And what have you done today?" Clint asked, deliberately changing the subject. He didn't know for sure that Natasha knew anything, and he wasn't going to let her lead him into a trap.

"We got a bit of a late start," Bucky said, grinning suggestively. Natasha rolled her eyes but didn't refute it.

"And then we came here," Natasha said, shrugging. "We've gone on a couple of rides. Bucky made me go on Small World." The look on her face suggested that he'd subjected her to hard-core torture rather than a Disney ride.

"When you go to Disney World you have to go on Small World!" Bucky declared impatiently, and Clint suspected they'd had this argument a few times already today. "My mother would be ashamed if she heard I'd skipped it!"

"It's annoying and mildly racist," Natasha insisted stubbornly.

"Fine," Bucky sighed. "Next time I'll go by myself."

"Yes, you will," Natasha answered, biting a french fry in half and chewing it viciously.

"Anyway, we also went on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, but that's all we've managed so far," Bucky said. "I like your ears, by the way."

"Oh, thanks," Clint said, patting his ear hat a little self-consciously. He'd forgotten that he was even wearing it, since he hadn't had to take it off for the last few rides they'd been on. "Phil and I are doing Splash Mountain after this. We've got fastpasses."

"Best time of day to do it," Bucky said approvingly.

"Oh, hey guys!" Phil greeted, setting the tray he was balancing down carefully on the table. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"And we didn't know you'd be here," Natasha returned, smirking again like she knew all their secrets, even though Clint was mostly sure she didn't. "Just lucky, I guess."

Phil was very carefully not meeting Clint's eyes, and he couldn't help but feel angry with Natasha and Bucky. It wasn't like it was their fault. They didn't know that they were interrupting the greatest day of Clint's life, or that them being there might make Phil retreat back into his shell, terrified that someone they knew might see them together.

But still, they had shattered the illusion of freedom and safety, which surely meant that Phil was going to close off again.

Phil pushed Clint's food (a burger, fries, and a bottle of water) across the table towards Clint and started unwrapping his own burger with an intense focus. Clint tried not to look too put off and started eating his own food. Even though his stomach was twisting with so many nerves that he no longer felt hungry, he knew he should eat or risk getting sick later.

"So, what are you guys planning for the rest of the day?" Bucky asked, seemingly unaware of the awkwardness that had suddenly built up between Clint and Phil.

"Splash Mountain," Phil said after swallowing an overly large bite of burger. "And then maybe Fantasyland for a while. You know, the teacups, Peter Pan's flight. All those things that you really have to go on to make a Disney experience complete. It's Clint's first time."

He nodded towards the "1st Visit!" button on Clint's chest, and Clint very suddenly and inexplicably felt silly for wearing it. Taking it off would only garner questions, though, so he settled for hunching his shoulders and folding in on himself a bit in order to try and make it less noticeable. Natasha cast him a questioning glance when she saw him do it, but mercifully didn't say anything. He felt awkward enough already.

"You should do Philharmagic," Bucky advised. "And Small World, of course."

"Don't do Small World,' Natasha interjected quickly, tearing her eyes away from Clint's face.

"Everyone has to do Small World at least once, Tasha," Bucky insisted. "It's a Disney rite of passage!"

While Bucky and Natasha slipped into another argument about It's a Small World, Clint focused on trying to get Phil to meet his eyes. He was shoveling french fries into his mouth at a rate that probably wasn't healthy, but taking the time to dip each of them into some ketchup as he did so. The result was that his eyes were focused on the little ketchup cup, and unless Clint waved his hand under Phil's nose, he wasn't likely to catch his eye.

He wasn't trying to be quite that obvious about it, so instead he decided to stare at the top of Phil's forehead with laser-like focus, hoping that burning his gaze into Phil's brain would make him look. He continued eating as he did so, and every once in a while he missed his mouth, but it was worth it when Phil finally glanced up from his fries and looked right into Clint's eyes.

Of course, now that he was looking, Clint realized that he didn't even really know what he wanted to do or say. He settled for shooting him a hopeful smile and nudging his foot gently under the table.

Phil looked torn for a minute, glancing quickly at Natasha and Bucky, who were practically growling at each other, and then he looked back at Clint. After a long moment, he smiled in that way that made his eyes crinkle cutely, and he nudged Clint's foot back. Any anxiety and uncertainty that Clint had previously felt had washed away with the assurance that Phil wasn't angry and he wasn't going to completely shut down for the rest of the day.

Their little moment must have knocked down some sort of barrier in Phil, because suddenly he was much less focused on his food and he made attempts to rejoin the conversation, even though the conversation mostly consisted of Natasha and Bucky antagonizing each other.

They finished their food rather quickly, as their fastpass time was getting closer, but when they tried to excuse themselves, Bucky suggested they all go together.

"We can wait for you while you go through Splash Mountain and then we can head to fantasyland together," he said, looking pretty pleased with his idea.

Clint hesitated, not really sure how he was supposed to refuse them without it being suspicious. It wasn't like he could tell them he wanted to spend the day with his boyfriend, after all. Phil also seemed at a loss for a good excuse.

He opened his mouth to respond and then just stood there gaping silently at them. Natasha rolled her eyes and gave Clint such a piercing look that he was almost certain she knew.

"Bucky, we were supposed to be on a date today," she told him. The look of Bucky's face said that this information was news to him, but, wisely, he didn't dare argue with her about it. Instead, he just nodded and said,

"Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry, guys, we'll have to do something later instead. Maybe go for a swim at one of the hotels?"

"Yeah, sounds good," Phil answered quickly, and then they were gone, followed by Natasha's yelled reminder that tomorrow was Nationals and that Clint should be ready to do some last minute rehearsals by nine am.

Then, mercifully, the crowd between them grew too thick and they were alone at last. Or, as alone as they could be while surrounded by approximately 20,000 people.

"So," Phil said, clearing his throat. "That was…"

"Super awkward?" Clint asked. "I swear I almost swallowed my tongue when they sat down."

Phil nodded in agreement. Clint used the crowd as an excuse to scoot closer to him and tapped his knuckles against Phil's in what he hoped was a subtle, yet telling, manner. Phil didn't take a hold of his hand, though, and Clint resigned himself to working back up to easy affection they'd had before lunch.

"I'm sorry I can't…" Phil started, and then paused, like he was thinking of the best way to phrase what he was thinking. Clint watched a cast member give a crying little girl an ice cream shaped like Mickey Mouse while her exhausted parents stood on and looked pathetically grateful.

"I know we've talked about my...issues," Phil said slowly, staring determinedly in front of him instead of looking at Clint. "With being Out. And I know we agreed that we'd keep it private and that you're okay with it. But I'm sorry that we can't hold hands in front of our friends, or tell them we're on a date to get them to go away."

Clint laughed and nudged Phil's shoulder with his own. "That's okay. I've been having the best day of my life today, and you've been a huge part of that. Like I said before, I'm happy just to be with you."

Phil glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, a small smile threatening to spread across his face. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," Clint assured him, and he smiled when Phil laced their fingers together.

* * *

><p>After Splash Mountain, which had involved a lot of singing animatronic animals and water, they'd filled the rest of the afternoon with riding as many of the "essential" rides as they could. They'd spent quite a bit of time in Fantasyland, and had done Small World, which had been exactly as bad as Natasha had insisted and yet somehow kind of charming, to avoid the afternoon downpour.<p>

They'd also gone for a spin in the tea cups and on Prince Charming's Carousel. Clint's favorites, though, had been Peter Pan's Flight, which sat the guests in little pirate ships and "flew" them out the Darling children's bedroom and above detailed miniatures of London and Neverland, and Mickey's PhilharMagic, which was a really cute 3D movie about Donald Duck losing control of a magical orchestra.

They'd spent another few hours exploring Tom Sawyer Island and getting on rides like the Carousel of Progress, the People Mover, and the Hall of Presidents just so they could sit down in the cool air for a while. They had fried fish and split some fries for dinner at the Columbia Harbour House in Liberty Square, and then they began staking out the perfect spot for the fireworks show that night.

They ended up forcing their way into a prime spot by the statue of Walt and Mickey, where Clint promptly sat against the planter because his feet were killing him. Luckily it was so crowded that no one seemed to notice that he was there, since no one bothered to tell him to get down.

"So?" Phil asked, as main street started to get more and more packed with tired parents pushing their irritable toddlers in strollers.

"So what?" Clint asked, flexing his toes in his Chucks to assuage some of the ache in his feet.

"So, is today still the best day you've ever had? You see everything in the Magic Kingdom that you wanted to see?"

"Absolutely," Clint declared, grinning. "I mean, my feet hurt and my legs are starting to pulse and I'm so tired I can barely stand it, but this day has been truly awesome. I couldn't ask for it to be better. I'm so glad you're here."

Though it was dark, there were enough over-priced light-up toys around for Clint to see the way Phil's ears had gone pink, and he couldn't help but lean in for a kiss. He could feel Phil's lips stretch into a smile under his, and he couldn't help but respond with his own pleased grin, which should have ruined their kiss, but honestly just made it more awesome.

Just as they started pulling away from each other, a voice sounded from speakers all around them, talking about wishes, and the first firework shot into the sky, resulting in a rumbling chorus of "oooh"s from the people surrounding them.

Clint tugged at Phil's arm, ignoring his questioning glance, until he finally moved where Clint wanted him. He ended up standing between Clint's legs with his back pressed to Clint's chest. Clint's wound his arms around Phil's waist and rested his chin on Phil's shoulder. Clint felt it when Phil laughed, and he pressed a kiss to Phil's cheek when he settled his hands over Clint's.

They pressed close together and watched the fireworks pop over the castle as it changed colors, and Clint was sure he'd never have a more perfect night.

* * *

><p>The next morning was pure hell.<p>

Clint woke up to Sam singing Kiss the Girl in the shower, and he felt like he was having a Disney magic hangover. His head was foggy and a little achy and when he flexed his toes the arches of his feet reminded him that he'd been standing up pretty much constantly for the past two days.

He let out a heartfelt groan and then fished under his pillow for his phone. He groaned even louder when he saw that it was 7:30, but all his little aches and pains assured that he was wide awake for now, so he brushed off the idea of trying to fall back asleep for another half hour or so.

He checked his texts, finding one from Natasha with the whens and wheres of their schedule for the day, along with a few very creative threats for those who might show up late. There was another from Bobbi from the night before, inviting him out to the Jacuzzi with a few other people, but it had been sent after he'd already come back and gone to sleep. Finally, there was a simple emoticon heart from Phil, and Clint didn't even attempt to hide the stupid grin that spread over his face at the sight of it. He hastened to send a heart back, and then promptly dropped his phone on his face.

Clutching his nose, Clint turned on his side, glared at the wall, and tryied to decide if it was really worth it to get out of bed today. As if in answer to his thoughts, his phone chimed with yet another text from Natasha, reminding them to be at their rehearsal space by nine o' clock sharp, on threat of dismemberment. He dropped his phone into the sheets and stared back at the wall for a minute, still not sure that his fear of Natasha's threats outweighed how warm and comfy his bed was.

A few minutes later the shower turned off and Sam came back into the room with a towel wrapped securely around his waist, and Clint realized that he'd almost fallen asleep again. He watched quietly for a few seconds as Sam brushed his teeth, at least until he realized that it was weird to stare at someone while they were in a towel. Thankfully his phone chimed again, which gave him something else to focus on.

It was from Phil and _"Breakfast? :D"_ was all it said.

If anything could propel him from his bed, it was that. He quickly responded with _"10 mins" _and then scrambled out from under his sheets and into the bathroom. The water was blessedly hot when he stepped under it, and he spared a thought for how incredible the hotel's water heaters had to be. He was in and out of the shower in five minutes, but by the time he left the bathroom in a trail of steam, Phil was sitting cross-legged on his bed and chatting calmly with Sam.

Clint was extremely aware that he was only wearing a towel, and he was trying really hard not to blush or get awkwardly hard just because Phil's eyes were tracking him around the room. Sam, bless him, didn't seem to notice any of this and just continued chatting to Phil about Shield's chances in the basketball finals. He didn't even seem to notice that Phil had started answering in hums of agreement as he watched Clint try to awkwardly get his underwear on without dropping his towel.

He kinda liked the look on Phil's face as he watched him move around mostly naked and wet, and he might have even been tempted to purposely drop the towel if not for Sam. Being naked with Phil was a great plan that he had enjoyed thinking about on more than one occasion. Being naked with Phil and Sam? Not so much.

Once he got his underwear on, he let the towel drop to the floor, no longer worried about modesty. He saw the pained wince Phil made when he did it, and he grinned at him, waggling his eyebrows from behind Sam's back.

Phil valiantly tried to keep the blush from spreading over his face, but only partly succeeded. Clint gave a few suggestive hip thrusts, and then almost tripped over himself when Sam turned around to see what Phil was staring at.

"Will you stop dancing around in your drawers?" Sam demanded. "Nobody wants to see your little white butt shaking."

"Excuse you," Clint protested, pulling a purple under armor t-shirt over his head. "I have a great ass. You should be honored."

Sam barked out a laugh and turned back to Phil while Clint slipped into a pair of basketball shorts and sat down to tie on his shoes. He knew he would be spending the whole day lifting people up into the air and throwing tricks, so he was going to be as comfortable as possible until he had to put on his uniform. The under armor had promised to be sweat wicking, and nothing sounded more perfect than that in the sticky Florida humidity.

"You ready?" Phil asked, when Clint finished with his shoe laces.

"Yep," Clint answered, bouncing back to his feet. With a quick goodbye to Sam, they were out the door, grinning giddily at each other, their hands brushing together as they walked. When they got about halfway down the hall, Clint glanced around quickly, and when he saw there was no one there, he grinned wickedly at Phil and pressed him against the wall, one hand cradling the back of his head and the other his chin.

"Clint!" Phil protested as Clint leaned in to kiss him, but his arms wound around Clint's neck and his fingers tangled and tugged in his hair.

"Phil!" Clint muttered back, before pressing their mouths together and sighing happily at the warm pressure. He rubbed his thumb gently along Phil's jaw and smiled a bit when Phil sighed quietly and flexed his finger's in Clint's hair.

A door slammed shut down the hall, and they jumped apart from each other guiltily, but it was too late. Natasha, Bobbi, and Kate were standing four doors down from them, all with varying expressions of surprise on their faces.

"I knew it!" Kate whispered, and Natasha's smug face spoke for itself. Bobbi was the only one who seemed like she hadn't had any idea at all, and her wide eyes were flicking back and forth between them. Phil had gone rigid against Clint's body, and his fingers were now clenching quite painfully in Clint's hair.

"I-" he started, and his voice cracked audibly. Clint winced at the sound of it, his heart pounding against his chest, and the motion seemed to snap Phil out of his stupor. He released Clint quite suddenly and shoved him away. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to force Clint back a few steps.

"Phil," Clint started, desperate to try and fix the situation, even though it was clearly past fixing.

"It's not," Phil was saying, almost hysterically, to the girls. "I'm not…"

"Phil," Natasha said, her voice taking on a softer tone as she seemed to figure out that finally figuring them out wasn't a good thing. "Phil, it's okay."

"It's _not_," Phil insisted, looking more and more distressed. Clint wanted to reach out to him, to offer him comfort, but the roiling mix of guilt and sadness in his stomach wouldn't let him. It was probably the last thing Phil wanted right now anyway.

"Phil, it's okay if you're gay," Bobbi offered him, looking almost as distressed and Clint felt. "It really is and we won't…"

"I'm not gay!" Phil snarled, stepping away from her rapidly as if to escape her accusation.

"Phil, we saw you kissing Clint, so you're at least not totally straight," Kate pointed out. "It's okay, really. We won't tell anyone."

"You won't?" Phil asked, seeming to deflate a little.

"Not if you don't want us to," Natasha agreed. "But maybe the hallway isn't the best place, if you're trying to be discreet." She raised her eyebrows at Clint, who avoided looking her in the face. He already felt bad enough about it.

"Okay," Phil said slowly, apparently trusting that they were telling the truth. "Okay. I have to go."

He took off at a run down the hallway, and Clint only hesitated for a few seconds before he ran after him. He caught up as they rounded the corner and caught Phil's wrist to draw him to a stop. His face was red and he looked like he was a few seconds away from having a full-blown meltdown.

"Phil, I am so sor-" Clint tried to apologize, but Phil practically snarled at him, wrenching his wrist out of Clint's grip.

"Shut up, Clint!" he snapped.

He felt about three inches tall under Phil's angry and distressed glare. He should have known better than to kiss him where anyone could have come along at any moment. He shouldn't have done it. But he was so giddy and happy and maybe even in love that he couldn't help himself. And now it was all fucked up.

"I didn't mean…"

"What the hell were you thinking, in the hallway like that? Like half of our friends weren't in those rooms?"

"I don't know," Clint said, aware that he was whining a little. "I just...I'm sorry. I didn't think! They're not gonna tell anyone, Phil..."

"Just go away," Phil sighed. "Leave me alone."

Clint heart and stomach plummeted, and he reached out desperately for Phil's hand, but was denied the chance to hold it.

"Are you breaking up with me?" he asked, hating the way his voice wavered slightly.

"I don't know," Phil answered shortly. "But I want you to leave me alone."

Clint didn't try to stop him as he turned on his heel and headed off quickly down the hallway and out of sight. Instead he just tried not to cry and cursed himself for ruining everything. He always ruined everything.

"Clint? Phil?" The girls came around the corner, looking concerned.

"Phil's gone. He wanted to be left alone," Clint explained, blinking back the tears that just wouldn't stop trying to flow from his eyes.

"Oh, Clint!" Bobbi said. "What were you guys thinking? Of course you'll get caught in the hallway!"

"I don't know," Clint shrugged. "I wasn't thinking."

"You guys are idiots," Kate sighed. "But it'll work out."

"How do you know?" Clint demanded. "What if he never wants to talk to me again?"

"He will," Bobbi assured him. "Come on, let's go get some breakfast, get it off your mind."

"I don't want breakfast," Clint grumbled. "Not hungry."

"Well," Natasha said briskly. "Boyfriend troubles aside, today is Nationals, and you need to eat because I will not have you passing out in the middle of our routine."

"Jesus, Tash, way to be a bitch," Bobbi grumbled.

"I'm not being a bitch," Natasha insisted. "Clint's been working hard to get here for months, and I'm not going to let him throw it away because he's having a fight with his boyfriend. They'll make up, it'll all work out, but he'll really regret it if he wastes all that hard work because he's being melancholy."

Natasha's tone of voice suggested that she'd make him regret it, but he knew she was right anyway. Not so much about Phil forgiving him, but definitely about throwing Nationals. There were other people depending on him, and as any circus performer knew, the show must go on.

"Yeah," Clint agreed, aware that he was acting sullen. "You're right. Breakfast it is, then."

He could only hope, as they dragged him away towards Old Port Royale, that he would get the chance to make up with Phil later.


	6. Chapter 6

Clint was pretty sure he was going to puke.

He'd been relatively fine, if not completely depressed, all morning while they'd been practicing. Even when Natasha had made a risky decision to add a trick that they had just recently gotten down to their routine, he'd just nodded and made a mental note. He'd thrown himself into warming up, and then into practicing, to try and stop thinking about Phil and his stupid mistake.

But for the moment, Phil was the furthest thing from his mind. Because just past the large hanging curtains that had been set up to allow all the cheer squads to get ready to perform was a large matted area surrounded by stands with thousands of seats, and they'd been promised that every single one would be filled. He'd never performed in front of such a large audience before, and he felt sick with nerves like he had the first time he'd stepped into the center ring in the big top by himself. He'd resorted to trying to distract himself from thinking about anything important so that he wouldn't lose his breakfast.

That was how he'd ended up in his current situation. He'd made the mistake of showing a couple of the girls pictures of some of the makeup he'd done, and somehow Jan had roped him into helping her make up the rest of their teammates. He'd agreed in hopes that the makeup would distract him.

"Seriously Darcy, if you don't stop moving I am going to stab you in the eye. On purpose," Clint growled through gritted teeth as he tried to draw a smooth wing across Darcy's left eyelid with liquid eyeliner. He had a bit of experience with the stuff from doing makeup for performances at the circus, but he'd always preferred kohl himself.

"I'm sorry!" she sighed. "I'm just really excited. I can't do eyeliner wings to save my life! They always look lopsided and sad."

"Just takes practice, I guess." He aimed for nonchalance, because it had taken him months to train himself to keep his hand steady enough to create sleek black lines. Her eyes looked pretty dark and raccoon-ish with the black cream eye-shadow and the winged liner, and he glanced back down at the picture Jan had given him with a frown. The picture was a close-up of an eye that was done up with black eyeshadow paired with purple glitter on top and silver on the bottom. Hopefully his attempts would look the same after he got the glitter on.

He dipped his brush into the little dixie cup of silver glitter he'd been supplied and gently pressed it along her lower lash line, making Darcy huff a laugh as he leaned close to her face and gently patted the brush along her eyelid. The glitter sparkled brightly in the florescent light, making him wince a bit.

He switched brushes and started applying the purple glitter along her inner lid, being careful not to get any of it on her eyeliner. When he was satisfied with the glitter, he added some black mascara and then pronounced her done. He'd gotten a bit of glitter across her cheeks, but Darcy didn't seem to mind when she squealed into the mirror.

As soon as she was out of her seat, Bobbi claimed it and closed her eyes expectantly. He started the same way he had before, with the shadow, and tried really hard not to think about anything that wasn't putting on makeup.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about what happened with Phil earlier," Bobbi said in such a low voice that he could hardly hear her over the din of hundreds of cheerleaders getting ready.

"It's not your fault," Clint mumbled, wishing she hadn't brought it up. He'd been trying _not_ to think about Phil.

"It'll be okay," she offered, apparently unaware that he was trying to avoid the subject. "You guys looked really sweet and happy together. He won't give that up."

"He might," Clint sighed. "He was so freaked out that someone might find out. Like, seriously freaked out. Yesterday was the first time he really let go where other people could see, and I fucked it up."

"Well, from what I saw, he wasn't exactly pushing you away," Bobbi said. "It looked to me like he was holding you close in the hallway, so I'd say it wasn't entirely your fault. Phil's smart. He'll figure that out."

Clint sighed and started on her eyeliner, trying to force his hands to stop shaking as he drew a sleek black line. "Look, Bobbi, I really don't want to talk about it. I want to focus on not puking my guts out because of nerves."

"Okay," she said, seemingly not bothered by his shortness. "But I wouldn't worry too much about that big crowd out there. Once we start, you'll be so focused on landing all your tricks and positions that you'll forget it's not just another basketball game."

"Yeah, you've been to Nationals before, haven't you?" he asked, latching on to her offers of cheerleading comfort.

"Twice," she confirmed. "And we won both times, so we'll win again. Just wait and see."

"I don't know," Clint said. He hated to doubt Natasha since she was so good as captain, but he since he'd had time to work himself up into an anxious frenzy, he really wasn't sure about that new move. "Don't you think she's being a little ambitious by adding that trick at the last minute?"

"Tasha's an ambitious girl," Bobbi said serenely. "She was captain last year and did the same thing, and it all worked out. She wouldn't have added it if she didn't think we could pull it off."

"And what about the fact that we've been practicing the routine one way for a month and she just changed it? What if someone forgets?" Clint demanded. He kept having horror images of missing the steps because he was confused and someone getting hurt because of it.

"Everyone will be so busy thinking about how she changed the routine that they won't forget," Bobbi promised him. "Don't worry Clint, you're gonna do great, Clint. You're really good at this."

"I hope so," Clint sighed, and Bobbi smiled encouragingly at him.

He worked up a good rhythm with the make up, and before he knew it he'd finished his half of the team (the guys had been bullied into wearing some eyeliner and getting glitter sprinkled in their hair) and had been sent off to change into his uniform.

The whole "backstage" area was a mess of stretching, bouncy teenage girls, make up, and and large hair ribbons. There were guys too, of course, but nowhere near as many. Clint ducked into the small curtained-off area designated for changing and breathed a sigh of relief. There was hardly anyone back there, and he reveled in having a whole foot of space to himself.

He found Coach Blake, who seemed to be just as reluctant to chaperone as Coach Hand was, keeping guard over their gym bags. His idea of keeping guard was mostly to just lean against a nearby wall and stream a basketball game on his phone.

After a minute of searching, Clint grabbed his duffel from the small pile of nearly identical bags. It was the same bag that pretty much all of his teammates had, and he was grateful for a moment that there were only four guys on the team. The bag was an expensive purple and black one with his name embroidered in silver thread on one side and a cheerleader megaphone patch on the other.

It was a little much, honestly, but Nick had pretty much bought everything the school offered for cheerleaders for him. They weren't super close and they didn't have any particular father-son relationship, but Nick still tried to show that he cared, and Clint appreciated it. Some people might say that showing affection through money wasn't a good idea, but Clint had grown up dirt poor and he was really liking getting used to having money spent on him.

He changed in an almost numb state of fugue, desperately thinking about anything other than the things he really wanted to be thinking about. He couldn't handle thinking about Phil right now, and since he was pretty sure thinking about the competition was going to make him throw up, he settled for the nice and safe task of conjugating spanish verbs instead.

"_Jugar, juego, juegas…"_ he told himself sternly when he wondered if Phil would still come to watch him compete.

"_Juega, jugamos, juegan,"_ he finished, not at all wondering if Phil was going to go back to the way things were before, where he barely tolerated Clint's presence, if he acknowledged it at all.

Clint didn't even bother picking another word to conjugate. It clearly wasn't working.

He wished that he could call Alyosha and Olena. They always knew what to say to make him feel better, to encourage him, and to snap him out of his self-pity and harness his energy elsewhere. But they didn't have a cell phone, and a traveling circus really didn't offer much in the way of a landline.

Before he could really go off the deep end and try to talk to himself the way Olena might, Kate found him. She'd put on her uniform since he'd last seen her, and her black hair was now neatly curled and pulled up into a ponytail with a large purple bow.

"Hey, Nat wants us all together for a pep talk before we go on. Are you okay? You look like you're about to hurl."

"That's probably because I might be about to hurl," Clint replied.

"Well don't do it anywhere near me, because if you throw up and I am definitely gonna throw up and I know that Jessica Jones is a sympathetic puker too, so if you start it, it's gonna make the rounds and then Nat will tear your head off," Kate warned, grinning cheekily at him.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Clint said, unable to keep back a smile even as he was trying not to picture a merry-go-round of puking.

"What can I say, we cheerleaders have to stick together," Kate said, clapping him on the arm. "Now come on, I think Natasha's going to grind her teeth down to the gum if we keep making her wait."

As they pushed through the dense crowd of cheerleaders, Clint heard the announcer start talking, followed by a tremendous round of applause that just made him more nervous about how many people were out there.

He knew logically that his nerves were ridiculous. It was just another performance. Just one more show, like he'd been doing pretty much all his life.

"_But it's not the same, is it?"_ A nasty voice in the back of his mind whispered. _"If you messed up there, it was on you. If you mess up here, you're letting your whole team down."_

"Good, you're here!" Natasha said as they approached, and Clint was surprised to see they were the last ones there. He must have spent more time changing than he thought. They stepped into the tight circle their team had made, and Clint tried to grin encouragingly when Luke threw his arm around Clint's shoulders and gave him a friendly shake.

"Okay, we're on third," Natasha told them. "I've been looking around at the other teams and I really think we've got it in the bag this year. These are all teams we've beaten before, and some of them don't have any new notable members. But that doesn't mean we can slack. I want you to go out there and give it everything you've got. Stick your landings, remember the change in the routine, and for god's sake smile until your face falls off."

"This pep talk is inspiring a ton of a confidence in me, Tash, you should do this for a living," Clint commented dryly, and the look Natasha cut him was a mix of amused and scary. Kind of like a shark who found something interesting to nibble on.

"Shut up, Clint," she told him impatiently. "You guys have worked really hard this year. You've pushed yourselves harder, learned more, and come farther than you've ever done before. Even the newbies are better than when they first joined, and you should all be very proud of all you've accomplished. Now, we're going to go out there and we are going to kick some ass!"

The rest of the team let out a roar of encouraged excitement, and Clint couldn't help but get caught up in it. For a minute he truly felt like they would win, and the nerves in his stomach disappeared.

That only lasted for a moment, though, and soon the feeling was back with a vengeance, pestering him as he tried to stretch out and limber up in preparation for their turn. He didn't dare watch the teams that were going before them, afraid that they would be amazing and it would just make his doubts grow, but he heard their audience roaring in approval for them and it did nothing to help soothe his nerves.

He considered going to the bathroom and forcing himself to throw up, just so that he wouldn't do it on accident once they were out there, but before he could seriously decide if it was a good idea he was getting hustled in the direction of the stage, and he could see the previous team waving to the audience as they were hurried back off on the other side.

"Up next we have our returning champions!" the announcer boomed, and Clint felt his skin prickle with goosebumps. "Put your hands together for the Shield Academy Eagles!"

Someone behind Clint jostled him as they made their way out, and he realized that he was rooted to the spot. He snorted at himself in a mix of exasperation and disgust and then put on his very best show face and moved with them, waving to the energetic crowd as they trotted out in front of them to take their places.

He scanned the audience hopefully for Phil, but the lights were so bright he could hardly see the audience at all. It was disappointing on the Phil front, but an absolute blessing for calming his nerves. There was something reassuring about not being able to see thousands of faces staring back at him.

He snapped to attention as the music started, which was a mash-up of Disney songs, some Tchaikovsky, and a heavy drumline and beat. After that, it was mostly just falling into the instinct of something he'd rehearsed probably a million times. He didn't pay too much attention to what everyone else was doing, but when he tossed Kate up and caught her in single-base lift, he heard the crowd roar and knew that everyone else must have pulled it off as well.

He let his body move the way he'd trained it to for the next couple moves, so much so that he almost forgot the new trick. He caught himself before he went more than a step out of place, though, and he quickly corrected, hoping that no one else noticed.

He took a breath as they all assembled in their proper spots, put his hands firmly on Natasha's waist, and up she went. She settled with her feet on his shoulders, and almost immediately Jan was tossed up too, her tiny body flying easily up into the air, pulling a split as she went up and then landing with both of her feet caught firmly in Natasha's hands, so that Clint was holding up a fully-extended Natasha, who was holding up a fully extended Jan.

The crowd went nuts, screaming and whooping with excitement, and Clint let out a sigh of relief at their success while Jan flipped off the top and he helped Natasha drop down off his shoulders.

After that, it seemed like a breeze. They returned to the same thing they'd been practicing for weeks, and series of lifts and flips that, while still impressive and hard in their own right, were nothing compared to the big move they'd just managed to pull off in front of thousands of people.

When the fliers took their final toss, flipping in unison in the air, and Natasha landed safely in his arms, Clint couldn't keep the wide grin off his face. He set her on her feet, and they waved to the crowd, shouting their excitement as they bounced off the stage.

"Holy shit!" Kate was saying as they got behind the curtain. "Holy shit we actually did it!"

"Of course we did it," Natasha said, smiling like the cat who go the canary. "I wouldn't have had us pull that stunt if I thought we couldn't do it. We're definitely going to win." Her eyes were gleaming a little maniacally, but Clint couldn't help but agree with her. What they'd just done out there was amazing, and they were definitely going to place, at least.

"Now don't get too ahead of yourself," Coach Hand told them sternly. "There are still three teams left, anything could happen."

They ignored her and continued their premature celebrating. They even stayed to watch the next team perform, and they were all extremely secure in the knowledge that they had done better.

The next team after that was good, but Clint still didn't think they were good enough to beat Shield, and he was feeling pretty confident until the last team took the stage. They moved like a hive mind, every step in beat, every flip, toss, and back handspring in perfect unison. Their smiles were bright and full, and Clint felt his stomach churn.

Shield had done amazingly well. They'd landed all their tricks, they'd done their stunts in unison, but he couldn't help but remember that misstep he'd took. For a split second, he'd messed up their routine, and he couldn't say for sure that none of the judges had noticed.

"It's okay, Clint," Natasha said, apparently sensing his nerves even though she never tore her eyes away from the Lipscomb Academy Mustangs. "They're good, but we still have our double extension. The judges will know how difficult that was."

Even as she said it, the Mustangs took an eerily similar position to the one they'd used for their double extension and Natasha tensed. One lone girl stood in front of the group, and Clint knew with sudden clarity exactly what she was going to do before she took her first step.

"Is it unsportsman-like to hope she'll trip?" he muttered to Natasha, who grinned but said nothing.

The girl started off with a triple backhandspring across the floor, landing neatly in the cradle of the first set of bases. She popped up to her feet and up she went in a simple but precise flip, landing in the hands of the girl fully extended behind the first base group.

It should have been all over for them then, but then the flier wobbled noticeably. She kept her bright smile as she righted herself and started to pull a scorpion, but Clint saw the wince on the base's face as he moved too far to try and correct their balance, and he watched the top girl tumble from her perch before she could complete the extension.

Her teammates caught her neatly, but it wasn't enough. They'd botched what was most likely their biggest trick, so unless they had something else up their sleeves, they definitely weren't going to pull first place. It took everything Clint had in him not to crow in delight.

The Mustangs finished less than a minute after their botched trick and left the stage with huge smiles and waves that diminished distinctly as soon as they were out of sight of the audience. Clint felt kind of bad for being so happy that they'd messed up.

"You did great," he offered to the flier who had fallen, because she looked like she was about to cry. She tried to smile weakly at him, but her face crumpled halfway through the motion and she rushed away towards the bathrooms.

"I have a strange feeling of relief but also guilt," he said, and Natasha shrugged.

"That's the way the game is played," she said. "They'd be pleased if we had messed up instead of them."

"Yeah," Clint said, knowing she was right. He still felt kinda bad about the tripping comment though.

The announcer finished telling them about how the judges were going to deliberate and some music started playing from the speakers, accompanied by the loud roar of thousands of voices talking.

"So how long until they announce the winners?" Clint asked, the thrum of nerves rising up in his stomach once more. He kind of wished that he'd watched the first two squads, so he would have some sort of idea of whether or not they'd done better.

"Usually about ten minutes," Natasha said, studying her purple painted fingernails like she wasn't as nervous as he was. He could tell that she was, though, because she kept chewing on her lip like it was a tic.

He glanced around to seek out the rest of their teammates, because ten minutes suddenly seemed like the longest stretch of time in the world. He saw Skye, Kate, and Darcy nearby fixing each other's hair bows and chatting excitedly. Luke, Danny, and Jess Jones were sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor playing some sort of card game, most likely to keep their minds off the competition.

He couldn't see anyone else, so he turned back to Natasha who had procured her cell phone from somewhere. She was smiling softly down at the screen, which told Clint that whatever she was looking at was from Bucky.

She turned the phone towards him so he could look, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the screenshot of the snapchat Bucky had sent her. It was a picture of Phil, Bucky and Steve pressed together with huge smiles and the caption read, _"you guys were AMAZING!"_.

"He came," Clint said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.

"Of course he did," Natasha said, and Clint was forever grateful that she didn't have to ask.

"I wasn't sure he would," Clint told her, and she frowned at him.

"He's not going to be mad at you forever," she told him, sounding way more confident about it than Clint felt. "If he decided to take the risk of being with you, he's not going to give up on you so easily."

"You think?" Clint asked.

"I know. Phil is extremely stubborn, and that's going to work out in your favor this time."

Clint wasn't so sure about that, but he really hoped it was true. Natasha's phone buzzed again, and she returned her attention to the little screen. Clint left her side, not wanting to drive himself crazy hoping she'd get another picture of Phil.

He headed to the bathroom instead and spent a few minutes wiping off dried sweat with a wetted down paper towel so that he wouldn't go running off to get his phone from Coach Hand to obsessively check for messages from Phil.

He didn't leave the bathroom until one of the workers came by to inform anyone in the bathroom that the teams were getting ready to go back out on the stage. Clint took a deep breath, avoided his own eyes in the mirror, and then left the bathroom to rejoin his team.

The nervous energy was buzzing in the air all around him, and he found himself bouncing on his toes as they waited to be called back out. The teams re-entered the stage in the same order that they performed, and he was surprised by how bright the lights seemed now that he wasn't focusing on getting their routine down perfectly.

The stage area became rather crowded with all the squads pressed in their together, and that combined with the bright lights made him feel overheated and crowded. Bobbi grabbed his hand and twined their fingers together, and he could feel her sweat as their palms pressed together. She shot him a nervous grin and he tried to smile back, but his mind was racing with sudden convincing thoughts that they were definitely going to lose because he'd missed that one step.

The loud roar of the audience settled down into a quiet buzz when the judges filed back into the room and stood in front of a table bearing three different sized trophies with little cheerleader figures on top of them. The portly little announcer, who was dressed in a very expensive suit, took up the position in front of the microphone and began to speak, and a hush of silence went over the room.

"We would like to thank everyone who made the 2014 National High School Cheerleading Championship possible," the man started, and Clint suppressed a groan. It was just cruel to make them all sit through a speech before he announced the winners. "Firstly, to Disney World for hosting this wonderful event, secondly to the parents and audience members who showed up today to support these talented girls and boys in their athletic endeavors. Thirdly, we would like to thank all of the volunteers and workers that made this competition possible, and lastly, but certainly not least, to all of the cheerleaders who worked so hard all year in to compete. You all did a wonderful job, and you should be very proud of yourselves."

He was interrupted then by thunderous applause and feet stamping from the audience, and it took almost a full minute for them to quiet down long enough for him to continue.

"So now, without further ado, the winners of the 2014 National High School Cheerleading Championship!" He opened an official looking little gold envelope that one of the judges handed him, and Clint held his breath.

"In third place!" he called, pausing for a second to let the tension build. "The Overland Park Grizzlies!"

A slew of excited shrieks came from the team in red and white uniforms at the end of the group, the team that had gone first. They rushed forward to collect their trophy, which was the smallest one there, but still pretty decent sized. They seemed really pleased with it, and Clint didn't know whether to be excited that Shield in third place or worried that maybe they hadn't placed at all.

"In second place is," the announcer began after letting Overland Park soak up the applause for a few moments. "the Lipscomb Academy Mustangs!"

The Mustangs screamed and jumped around and ran up to collect their trophy, but Clint didn't miss the fact that a couple of them looked a little less than excited that they hadn't managed to pull first place.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for!" the announcer said, his voice booming over the microphone. The auditorium went completely silent, everyone hanging one his words, and he grinned a little bit like he just loved making them wait. "The first place winners of the 2014 National High School Cheerleading Championship are…"

He paused for effect, and Clint, his heart in his throat, wanted nothing more than to tackle him and steal the envelope from his hands.

"Champions for the fourth year in a row…" The "the Shield Academy Eagles" part of his sentence was drowned out by the ecstatic screams of Clint's teammates as they realized that they had won. Bobbi threw her arms around Clint's shoulders and hugged him tight, squealing loudly in his ear. He was almost immediately tackled by Darcy and Kate right after that, and he didn't even mind that they almost knocked him off his feet. He saw Luke lift Jess Jones off her feet to kiss her enthusiastically, and Jess Drew was crowing triumphantly from her perch on Carol's back.

Natasha had, at some point, collected the gigantic trophy, and Danny and Skye were helping her lift it up above their heads in victory. Clint's heart was thumping almost painfully with the feeling of victory and the sound of applause. He hadn't felt quite so amazing since the last time he'd been in the center ring at Carson's, and he'd forgotten how much he missed it.

The next hour was a blur of team pictures, interviews by for fluff news pieces, and a ton of emotions that Clint really couldn't even begin to categorize, except that they were all positive ones.

Eventually they cleared out of the auditorium, leaving their huge trophy behind to get shipped back to Midgard, and they all reached a general consensus that they were going to go out to eat in celebration.

As they walked back to their hotel to drop off their bags, Clint dug into the side pocket of his and retrieved his cellphone. He stared at the black screen, hoping that when he pushed the button he'd see a text from Phil, but almost too afraid to actually check. It took him almost five minutes, but eventually he did press the button.

There was no text.

He frowned at the disappointment that flooded through him, and then pushed the feeling away and locked it down. They'd won tonight. They were champions, and he deserved to be happy. He wasn't going to let his maybe-not boyfriend ruin his mood. He wasn't. Clint shoved the phone into his pocket and hurried to catch up with Natasha.

He was going to enjoy their team dinner and have a great time celebrating if it killed him.

* * *

><p>As it turned out, the guys from the basketball team ended up joining them for dinner to say goodbye because their plane back to Midgard left early the next morning. Clint tried not to let the fact that Phil sat at the other end of the table and avoided looking at him bother him, but it really did. Kate was really good about trying to keep him distracted, and he wasn't sure he'd ever appreciated her more.<p>

They'd decided to get dinner at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney, so the scenery of the restaurant helped a lot in the way of distraction. They'd been seated next to the animatronic gorillas, and they moved around and made noises, so it gave him something to focus on when Kate got distracted by something else. Every once in a while, lightning would flash and thunder would sound, and all the animals would react to it.

The restaurant was actually really cool, and Clint was completely charmed by it.

By the time they'd finished with dinner and gotten back on resort, pretty much everyone had been flagging from their long day full of work and excitement. They'd all been eager to get back to their rooms, finally change out of the uniforms that Natasha had insisted they wear to dinner, and go to sleep.

While Clint waited for Sam to finish brushing his teeth so they could turn out the lights, he curled up in bed with his phone and stared at the text of the little heart that Phil had sent him that morning, before he'd fucked everything up. It was just two little symbols, but somehow it seemed like a huge deal, and he didn't like the thought that he might never get one from Phil again.

As Sam finished up and went to turn out the lights, Clint took a breath and made a decision. He typed "I'm sorry" and quickly hit send before he could change his mind. He tucked his phone under his pillow and closed his eyes, pretending he wasn't wishing desperately to hear it chime with a response.

* * *

><p>Clint didn't get a reply text, and his unsure relationship status kind of dampened the rest of the trip for him. He tried his hardest to enjoy his days in Epcot and the Animal Kingdom, and he did, but he couldn't help but notice that it was somewhat missing the magic of the first two days. Still, he tried to make the most of his trip because he didn't know if he'd ever be back.<p>

By the time they got on the plane Sunday afternoon, he'd gotten a tan that was bordering on the edge of a sunburn, his phone was full of pictures, and he was the proud owner of a NCA jacket that read "National Champion" in big letters on the back. He also felt ready to sleep for about a week, but that wasn't really an option, since school was still a thing he had to do.

He spent most of first period on Monday with his head down on the desk as he worked on writing his "about me" essay. There was something undignified about translating "My name is Clint, I am sixteen years old, I like archery and cheerleading" into beginner's Spanish that would probably get him laughed at by a five year old native speaker.

Kate seemed to agree with him, and kept asking him how to say cuss words in Ukrainian instead of focusing on their task. At any rate, it kept Clint from falling asleep, and he was able to finish the paper before the end of class, so he wouldn't have to do it for homework.

"Hey," Kate said in undertone as they headed for the choir classroom together. Kate didn't actually take choir, but she liked to skip her second period study hall and come along to pester him during class. "Have you talked to _you-know-who_ since...well, you know."

"No," he sighed, his hand instinctively going to the cell phone is his pocket, like maybe it would start vibrating with a message from Phil right then. "I texted him the night of Nationals, but he never answered me."

"Well," Kate said thoughtfully. "Maybe he didn't get it. Have you tried texting him again? Or calling him?"

"No," Clint said sullenly. He'd thought about doing just that a hundred times or more, but in the end he was never able to. "I don't want to bother him."

"So what?" Kate demanded testily. "You're just going to let him pull away from you and leave it like that?"

That was the absolute last thing Clint wanted, but he didn't know what else to do. He didn't want to call Phil and have to hear him hang up, or send another text that never got answered. He didn't want to face rejection every time he tried to reach out, so instead he was going to wait for Phil to do it. If he ever did.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Clint asked her. "Follow him around and leave him a hundred messages until I drive him crazy and he gets a restraining order? He asked me to leave him alone."

"But you're not actually _broken up_, are you?" Kate asked. "I mean, he's still technically your boyfriend right?"

"Technically, yeah," Clint said. "He hasn't _said_ he wants to break up. But I kind of feel like his radio silence over the last four days speaks for itself."

"Don't be stupid. "This is Ph-You-Know-Who," she said cutting herself off before she actually said Phil's name. They weren't exactly in the most private of places, after all. "If he's going to dump you, he'll tell you in person. And he won't leave you hanging around forever to do it."

That was something Clint hadn't even considered, and it didn't really make him feel better.

"Oh, great," Clint sighed. "So if he _does_ actually talk to me, it might be because he's about to dump me. Thanks, Katie, you're great at this pep talk stuff. You and Nat should start a club."

"Shut up," Kate snapped, elbowing him hard in the side. "All I'm saying is, if you want to be in a relationship, you can't wait around passively for your boyfriend to decide if he's gonna dump you or not."

"Yeah?" Clint asked defensively. "Well, what do you know?"

"Nothing, apparently," Kate said, throwing her hands up in defeat as they passed through the door of the choir classroom. "Just forget it."

Clint scowled at her but didn't say anything. All the uncertainty with Phil was messing with his head, and if he was going to get through the rest of the school day, he was going to have to do his best not to think about it.

* * *

><p>Phil avoided him for most of the week.<p>

Not that it was particularly hard to do, since Clint had decided to give him space and had also realized how very close finals were getting, and therefore was spending most of his free time with his tutors so that he wouldn't embarrass himself and get held back.

The only place Phil couldn't avoid him was sixth period biology, since they were still lab partners. Much to Clint's relief, Phil hadn't gone back to being a jerk. In fact, on Tuesday they'd had a short but civil conversation about the upcoming basketball game on Friday in between agreeing on answers to write down on their lab sheet. Clint repaid that kindness by not being pushy, even when he saw Phil watching him somewhat wistfully out of the corner of his eye.

Even though Clint was honestly kind of miserable, it was working out all right. By Thursday he'd mostly resigned himself to never again speaking to Phil outside of sixth period when Mr. Jameson informed them that he'd decided half of their final exam grade was going to come from a presentation with their lab partner on one of the subjects they'd gone over that year, and that the presentations were to take place next week.

Clint had mixed feelings about that news. On the one hand, he was much more confident in his ability to bullshit his way through a presentation than through a test. On the other hand, that meant he and Phil were going to have to get together to work on it, which kind of put a damper on his plans to leave Phil alone until he decided for sure if he hated Clint's guts or not.

Mr. Jameson passed around a sign-up sheet for presentation times, and by the time it got around to Clint and Phil's table, the latest dates were all taken up. They were left with the option of going on Tuesday and hoping for the best, or biting the bullet and going first on Monday in order to get the extra points that Phil assured him they'd get for taking the initiative to go first.

Even though they had the game on Friday, they decided to go for the extra points, and they'd agreed to meet at Nick's house after Phil's practice that night to talk over ideas and set up a work schedule for the weekend.

So that was how Clint found himself pacing obsessively in the front hall of his house on Thursday evening with his bio textbook in hand, reading up on DNA and all that the core curriculum deemed he should know about it.

"So, are you trying to make a trench?" The sound of Nick's voice nearly made Clint jump out of his skin.

"What?" he asked, when he'd recovered from his surprise.

"With all that pacing, you're gonna work a groove into the floor. So are you building a trench? Because I might be okay with a trench, but I'm going to have to put my foot down at a moat. I don't wanna accidentally step in it. Hate it when my feet get wet."

"What are you talking about?" Clint asked blankly, dropping his book down to his side so he focus the brunt of his bemused stare at his foster father.

"Why are you pacing back in the hallway like death is coming for you?" Nick asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame that separated the front hall from the living room.

"Phil's coming over," Clint explained, and Nick nodded knowingly because_ he knew everything_.

"Did you two make up, then?" he asked.

"No, but we have a bio project to work on, and we have not made up, and it's going to be painfully awkward and I'm going to have to sit here this whole time pretending like it's not and it really sucks."

Clint was aware that he sounded kind of hysterical, and he really did not give a damn. He had every right to be hysterical, because his maybe-not boyfriend who was totally pissed at him was going to be in his house after almost a week of near-silence, and he really had no clue how to deal with that.

"What are you two even fighting about anyway?" Nick asked, and Clint was kind of delighted to discover that Nick actually wasn't completely omniscient.

"It's...personal," Clint evaded, and Nick nodded again.

"Right. Well, since I don't know what you're fighting about, all I can say is that you should try to talk to him and resolve it. It's no good to lose friends because you let your pride get in the way of apologizing."

"I did apologize," Clint insisted, wondering if he should be offended that Nick immediately assumed he was the one who should be doing the apologizing. "At least twice."

"Well, then," Nick shrugged a little helplessly. "You'll figure it out."

"Right, thanks," Clint said, because he wasn't really sure what else to say. Phil chose that moment to ring the doorbell, and Clint quite suddenly felt like he was caught in the balance between two awkward conversations, and he wasn't sure which one he'd rather face.

Nick made the decision for him by heading down the hall to his office, calling back that he was going to get some work done. Clint turned to face the door, took a deep breath, and went to open it.

Phil's was standing on the porch with his shoulders slightly slumped and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. He had his brown leather messenger bag slung across his chest, his hair was still wet from the shower he'd taken after basketball practice, and his eyes were still bright in the way they got after he played a good game.

He looked great, and it took everything Clint had not to reach out for him.

"Hey," Phil said, as Clint suddenly remembered that the last time Phil had been over they'd spent half an hour making out in his bedroom.

"Hey," Clint responded, and then after a long pause he stepped out of the way of the door and added, "Come on in."

They were both completely quiet as they headed across the front hall and into the kitchen where the rest of Clint's school stuff was. He watched Phil take off his bag and sling it on to the table, and again he was struck with the desire to reach out and grab ahold of him, to pull him close and kiss him until their lips got sore.

"Want a drink?" he asked instead.

"Oh. Um yeah, sure," Phil said, suddenly very interested in finding something in his bag. "Coke?"

"Coke," Clint agreed, and then he headed for the fridge, like maybe the sounds of him rummaging around in their might block out the excruciatingly awkward silence. He grabbed two cans of soda and then headed back to the kitchen table. He offered one of the cans to Phil, and it felt like an electric shock when their fingers brushed just slightly as Phil took it from him.

They were quiet as Phil got his things out of his bag and arranged them precisely on the table in front of him. He opened his book to the chapter on DNA and then went to great lengths to assure that his notebook was arranged parallel to it. He was lining up his pen and hi-liter in the same fashion when Clint finally broke their awkward silence.

"So. Biology project."

"Right," Phil said, clearing his throat. "I, uh, had an idea for what we might do It's kind of stupid, but…"

"No, lay it on me," Clint encouraged him quickly. "I've got nothing."

"Well," Phil said, glancing up at him. "I thought maybe we could do a presentation on Captain America."

"The comic book character?" Clint asked stupidly, as if there were another Captain America that Phil might be talking about.

"Well, yeah," Phil said. "I thought maybe we could talk about how his DNA was changed by the super soldier serum, and give an explanation about how that might theoretically work. It would let us cover all the main points about DNA that the book wants us to, and it gives us a subject matter. We can spend a couple minutes talking about the Captain America backstory and then a couple minutes on the science part, and it should be easy to fill in ten minutes that way."

Clint just stared at him for a second, because it was the most he'd heard Phil say in a week and he hadn't realized how much he'd missed listening to that cute babble thing he did when he was nervous or excited. Phil interpreted his silence a different way.

"Sorry, I told you it was stupid…"

"No, it's great!" Clint interrupted him quickly. "It's really great, I think Mr. Jameson will love it. So...you know more about Captain America than me. How do you think we should do this?"

The awkward silence mostly evaporated as they got into planning out what they would do for their project and making notes about the actual science part. Clint was still very aware of the elephant in the room, but it was easier to ignore when they had something to focus on. They'd gotten through almost half an hour's worth of work when Nick came into the kitchen twirling his car keys around his finger.

"Hey, I'm going to pick up dinner," he told them. "You like pizza, right Phil?"

"Yes, sir," Phil answered, looking kind of awkward as he was reminded that his principal also lived there.

"Well, great, because that's what I ordered. I'll be back in fifteen minutes, boys." He headed out the door, whistling a jaunty tune, and Clint couldn't help but be suspicious about his good mood.

Five more minutes passed in silence before Clint couldn't help himself anymore.

"Phil, I'm really sorry," he said. Phil didn't say anything for a while, and Clint was starting to wonder if he hadn't been heard, or if he maybe hadn't actually said his apology out loud, when Phil spoke.

"I didn't want anyone to know, Clint," he sighed, sounding sad. "We agreed that no one would know."

"Yeah, I know," Clint offered, tapping the end of his pen against his notebook. "But I mean...it's not like I meant for anyone to find out. It's not like I purposely told someone. I just...I was really happy and excited and I really wanted to kiss you, so I did. I just didn't think."

The tiniest of smiles broke over Phil's face for a moment, and he looked down at the table until it went away. Clint missed it immediately.

"Look, I'm not unreasonable," he said, looking back up and meeting Clint's eyes. "I know that it wasn't totally your fault. I was really mad when it happened, but I've had time to think and I've realized that I certainly didn't stop you. I wasn't thinking either. We were both kind of drunk on Disney magic and the anonymity we'd had the day before and we weren't thinking. I'm not mad at you anymore."

"You're not?" Clint asked, surprised. "Then why have you been avoiding me?"

"I'm avoiding you because I don't know what to do about us," Phil said, and Clint already didn't like the way it sounded. "I really like being with you. I have a lot of fun with you, and I loved getting to go on a date in public and not worrying about what people thought of us at Disney."

"I did too," Clint interrupted him quickly, a little desperately, sensing a 'but'. "It was the best day of my life, Phil…"

"But I don't know that I can do that here," Phil said, gentle but firm. "Here is where I've lived my whole life, where my parents and all my friends are. I want to hold your hand and go on dates with you, but I'm terrified of what the people closest to me will say…"

"We can do all that!" Clint insisted, hating the way his voice cracked just slightly. "We can go on dates and hold hands and be boyfriends and no one has to know! We can go back to how it was before and I won't take stupid risks anymore, I promise!"

He knew he was begging now, and while a small part of him that sounded like Barney was sneering at him, most of him didn't care. He just didn't want to lose Phil.

"It's not fair of me to ask you to hide, Clint," Phil said, his eyes a little misty. "It's not fair of me to maybe fall in love with you and then hide you from everyone else like some dirty little secret. You're so open and comfortable with who you are and I…"

"I don't mind, really," Clint insisted, his heart practically jumping out of his chest. "I think maybe I love you too, and I know I fucked up in the hotel, but I really don't mind keeping it secret as long as you want…"

"I mind," Phil whispered. "I don't want to have a secret like this anymore."

"So, what then?" Clint demanded angrily, because Phil's admission hurt right down to his core, and it was easier to be angry. "What does that mean? Are you breaking up with me?"

"I don't want to," Phil said, looking away again. "I have a lot-"

"Then _don't_!" Clint practically shouted, pushing out of his seat and stomping around the table.

He grabbed Phil's face in his hands before he could say anything more and pressed their mouths together in a harsh, desperate kiss. Phil melted under him, his hands grabbing a hold of Clint's t-shirt and clenching tightly in the fabric. It was great for a moment, and then suddenly Phil was pulling away, standing up, and shoving his things into his backpack.

"I have to go," he said, and Clint didn't say anything.

He just watched and tried not to cry as Phil swung his bag over his shoulder and hurried out of the kitchen. Clint followed after him into the hallway, screaming on the inside, but words failed him. The front door opened as Phil was reaching for the handle, and Nick came in with two pizza boxes.

"Hey, are you leaving?" he asked, frowning back at Clint.

"Yeah, I have to go," Phil said quickly. "Sorry, Mr. Fury."

He pushed past Clint's foster father and out the door, and Clint still couldn't say anything.

"Is everything okay?" Nick asked, eyeing Clint with concern.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Clint lied, heading up the stairs. "I'm gonna go to bed."

"What about dinner?" Nick called after him.

"I'm not hungry!" Clint called back, and he closed his bedroom door firmly behind him.

* * *

><p>"You look like shit."<p>

Clint glared up from his stretches, a scowl fixed on his face.

"Thanks, Nat, you're a peach."

Natasha nudged his thigh with the pristine white toe of her tennis shoe until he grumbled at her and batted her foot away from him.

"You know I didn't mean it like that," she said. "You look upset and a little sick and not at all how you should look before the final game of the season."

"Well, I am upset," Clint told her bluntly. "And if you give me a little time I might be able to wrangle up sick, too."

"Ah," she said knowingly. "Are you and Phil still…"

"There is no me and Phil," Clint told her flatly.

She frowned at him, and then glanced back towards the gym doors where they could see the basketball team beginning to assemble for their entrance. She heaved out a huge sigh.

"All right," she said. "We don't have time for this now, but after the game you're coming home with me. We'll get some Ben & Jerry's and you can tell me all about it."

Clint stared at her skeptically, unsure what she planned to accomplish by giving into movie cliches, but Natasha was unfazed. She just rolled her eyes and nudged his thigh with her foot again.

"It will help to talk about it, and since I'm one of five people who know what happened, I'm willing to let you blubber on me for a while."

"What about IHOP?" Clint asked.

People would surely asked questions if they didn't go to their usual post-game haunt, and Clint wasn't sure how he'd even begin to explain to them that he'd had his heart broken by their supposedly straight friend

"We'll tell them you're sick and that I'm taking you home," she said, shrugging nonchalantly. "You in?"

"Yeah, okay," Clint sighed. "I'm in."

"Great," Natasha said. "Now go grab your megaphone and line up, we're starting."

The game was brutal. It seemed like everywhere Clint looked, Phil was there, looking cute and amazing in his uniform with sweat clinging to his skin and determination on his face. It was the ultimate test of will power, and Clint was pretty sure he was failing. Still, he pulled his tricks and didn't hurt anyone during half time, and he also managed not to throw himself at Phil's feet, so he was counting it as a win.

He should have been elated for the team when they beat the Troy Hydras, their biggest rival, in order to win the state championships. The bouncing and cheering he did at their slim victory should have been more sincere than it was, but Clint really couldn't bring himself to care that much. It was stupid and petty, but he hated being surrounded by happy people when he was miserable. He was glad to make a quick escape to Natasha's car when he emerged from the locker room.

"That day we talked about Phil during practice," Natasha said, about five minutes after they'd settled on the couch in her bedroom with their pints of ice cream. "You were already dating then, weren't you?"

"Well, not officially," Clint sighed, digging his spoon into the smooth surface of his Phish Food. "We'd hooked up a bit that weekend and we were still sorting things out, but we didn't really confirm anything about actually dating until later in the week." He shoved a large bite of ice cream into his mouth, and Natasha nodded thoughtfully.

"And you were so worried that something would happen and that he would turn on you," she added.

"I was," Clint agreed. He dug his spoon into the pint of ice cream and carefully tried to excavate a little fudge fish.

"But he hasn't," Natasha pushed.

"He kinda has, actually," Clint snorted, popping the newly-freed fish into his mouth. "We're back to the part where he doesn't look at me and hardly ever talks to me…"

"But it's not, really," Natasha told him. "It's not the same vibe as it was before, and you know it."

She was right, of course. The avoidance and awkward silences were plagued by sadness and uncertainty, not anything hostile or angry like it had seemed before. But they still hurt, and Clint couldn't help but feel somewhat wronged by them.

"We talked last night about what had happened," Clint told her forlornly, biting the remains of the chocolate fish in half. "He said he's not mad at me and that he didn't blame me entirely for what happened in the hotel."

"Since you're not happy, I assume that's not all he said," Natasha pressed. She offered her pint of Mint Chocolate Cookie out towards him, and he dug in his spoon with a sigh.

"Well, he also said that he didn't want anyone to know about us, but that he didn't think dating me was worth keeping such a big secret anymore."

Natasha raised her eyebrows in surprise at that, her spoon half-hanging out of her mouth. She stared at him for a long moment, and Clint fought not to squirm under her green gaze. Finally, she plucked the spoon from between her lips and then nudged Clint's knee with her green-painted toes in what was probably supposed to be a supportive gesture.

"He didn't say it like that," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Well, no," Clint admitted, blowing out a deep breath. "But I can read between the lines, Tasha, it was obvious what he meant."

"Maybe," she said. "I wasn't there, so I can't really say. But Clint, you know that I was doubtful about this whole thing from the beginning, even when I believed that you two were just trying to be friends. Phil's obviously got some issues that don't really have anything to do with you, and it's not your fault that he can't admit what he wants. If he doesn't think a relationship is worth keeping a secret, that's his problem and not yours."

"The guy that I'm half in love with has decided that I'm not worth the trouble," Clint grumbled. "It seems kinda personal to me."

Natasha sighed heavily and gave him one of her patented no-nonsense looks. "Okay, Clint, tell me what's going on here. Are you looking to rehash the entire relationship and be obsessive about everything that could have gone wrong, or are you looking for commiseration? Because I can do both, I just need to know which one."

Clint thought about it for a long second, but in the end the answer was clear.

"Commiseration," he said pitifully.

"Okay," Natasha said, shoving her spoon into her ice cream like a flag and depositing it on the coffee table. "Trash talking and movies coming up. Pacific Rim?"

Finally, a question that he didn't have to put a single ounce of thought into.

"Pacific Rim," he agreed.

Natasha queued up the movie and then settled back into the cushions, popping her feet into Clint's lap.

"Boys are stupid," she offered, and Clint nodded.

"They really, really are," he agreed.

* * *

><p>It was Sunday afternoon and they were on their way home from a grocery run when Nick tried to make an awkward attempt at parenting.<p>

"So, Clint," he said.

"So, Nick," Clint responded.

Nick shot him a Look.

"I've noticed that you seem...down lately." Clint had to fight to keep from smiling at Nick's obvious discomfort at making an attempt to talk about feelings.

"I'm okay," Clint said, leaning his forehead against the window and watching the pristine yards flash by.

"I know you're not, so don't even try it," Nick growled. Obviously he was very determined to feel like he'd done his parental duty. Normally, that kind of thing would make Clint feel embarrassingly fuzzy on the inside, but now it just filled him with dread.

"It's not important, don't worry about it," Clint sighed. "I already talked to Natasha, I'm not unhealthily bottling up my emotions or whatever else it was your parenting book said."

"Knock it off, you little shit," Nick replied, and Clint bit back another smile. "Obviously something went wrong with you and Phil Coulson. If you want to be all secretive about it, then fine, but I just want to make sure that it's not going to create problems for you."

Problems in school. Problems at home. Problems that will make you run away again. He didn't say it out loud, but Clint could read between the lines.

"It won't," Clint promised. "The whole situation really sucks, but I'm dealing."

"Okay," Nick said, turning on to their street. "You know, if you get to the point where you think you _aren't_ dealing so well…"

"I'll let you know," Clint said, and Nick seemed satisfied with that. He pulled into the driveway and popped the trunk. Clint stayed in the car for a minute, trying to gather his thoughts and emotions up after Nick's concern had kind of knocked them a little sideways.

Before he could get himself entirely together, Nick knocked on the window, his arms weighed down by at least half of what they'd bought. He moved to the side when Clint looked up at pointed at the front porch, where Phil was sitting on the steps. Nick raised his eyebrows and then headed for the house, passing Phil on the steps with a polite greeting.

Clint considered just staying in the car, or being really passive aggressive and just going in through the back door. He had absolutely no desire to listen to Phil talk about how much he didn't want people to know that they might have ever been involved. But then he remembered that they had a presentation due for biology the next day and that they hadn't done anything for most of it.

He heaved a sigh and got out of the car. He didn't acknowledge Phil as he went to retrieve the rest of the groceries from the trunk. Let him see how it felt to be ignored, for a change. He got all the way to the porch before he decided that he couldn't ignore him anymore without being stubborn about it.

"Hey," he said, glad that his voice came out level and disinterested. Phil didn't need to know exactly how much he'd been hurting over the past few days. "We can work on the project but first I've gotta help Nick get the groceries put away, so…"

"I told my parents," Phil said.

Clint raised his eyebrows in confusion. "About our biology project?"

"About us," Phil said, standing up rather suddenly. Clint set the grocery bags down.

"What do you mean, about us?" he asked, aware that his voice had suddenly gone a bit squeaky and not giving a damn. His heart was too busy filling up with hope.

"I mean on Friday night after the game my parents took me out to dinner to celebrate and I told them that I'm..." Phil paused and swallowed harshly, "That I'm _gay_."

"And, uh," Clint said, "what did they say?"

"Well," Phil said, "They asked if I was sure. I said yes. They asked how I could know, and I told them I've had a boyfriend for just over a month, and that he makes me really happy. Then they told me that they love me and that they'll always love me, and then they asked if I wanted dessert."

"Why?" Clint asked, because out of all the thoughts spinning through his brain, that one was the easiest to verbalize.

"I told you on Thursday that I didn't want to keep a secret like this anymore," Phil said. "And at the time, I wasn't really sure whether or not I meant I wanted us to break up or whether I should just stop being such a coward and tell people."

"I didn't need you to tell anyone, Phil," Clint interrupted. "I was fine…"

"I know you were," Phil sighed. "But I didn't know how long you'd be fine with it. And I didn't like lying to my parents and to my friends. I didn't like that I couldn't show people how happy I was with you because I was so afraid. So I thought about it all night and then all day, and I came to a conclusion."

"And what was that?" Clint asked.

He wanted to be encouraging. He didn't want Phil to stop talking to him, to realize that maybe this whole thing was a mistake. He wanted to be supportive, because maybe Phil still was his boyfriend after all.

"Whether or not I have a hard time saying the word or admitting it out loud, I am gay...or at least, not completely straight. And I'll always be that way, no matter if I say it or not. And I figured...I've got this really cute, sweet, _great_ guy who likes me, and if I'm afraid to own up to myself then I might just lose out on that. If I have to choose between staying in my comfort zone alone or being out of it with you, I'd rather be with you."

Clint just stared at him for a minute, because he kind of couldn't believe it. It almost didn't make sense that someone like Phil would break his own rules and stare his fears in the face for Clint. His silence stretched on a little too long, and Phil started to fidget a bit.

"Look, I know I haven't really made things easy on you these last few days," he said. "This all might be too little too late. But I still want to be your boyfriend, if you still want me to be."

Clint answered him with a kiss. He didn't even really make a conscious decision to do it. One moment they were standing there staring semi-awkwardly at each other and the next Clint had his hands on Phil's face and they were kissing like they might never let each other go, right out in the front yard where anyone could see.

"Yeah," Clint said when they pulled apart to smile stupidly at each other. "I still want you to be my boyfriend."

"Oh, good," Phil said, and then they were kissing again. They might have just spent the rest of their lives in Nick's front yard, kissing like they were each other's only source of oxygen, but eventually Nick opened the front door and poked his head out.

"Huh," he said, not sounding all that surprised when he saw them. "If you two could stop making a spectacle of yourselves, there's some perishables in those bags and I'd like them brought in please."

Phil was bright red when they pulled apart, but for once he didn't jump away from Clint like he was on fire. It was kind of nice.

"Uh, sorry, Mr. Fury," Phil offered, his voice amusingly high.

"I'll be right in," Clint said, glaring at the amused look on Nick's face. Nick just looked even more delighted, but he went back inside and closed the door behind him.

"Everything is okay between us now, right?" Phil asked. "I mean, I haven't told our friends yet, and I can't promise that I'm not gonna have some sort of anxious meltdown about this at some point, but…"

Clint kissed him again, waiting until Phil stopped trying to babble between kisses before he pulled away for good.

"We're good," Clint promised. "You want to come in? I can introduce you to my foster father as my boyfriend."

"Yeah," Phil answered, his smile a little bashful but no less bright. "I really do."


End file.
